Mr. Muid's Blog

Progressive Two "Ooh!" Double One

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 10:45:00 +0000

Can't express how contented i've been throughout this year. It starts with so many obstacle and ends with well wishes, support and encouragement from family and friends, i was able to strengthen myself to be much better than i used to be. 2011 had embark another progressive career and life milestone for me, including better position in my financial management.

A lot of unexpected encounters and it has been a privilege to the Lord Al-Mighty had shown and given me the path.

I'm not going to going to explain further in details but if some of you followed my twitter post and facebook updates, i am so blessed to have such an amazing life, after my years of fall and struggles. I only can say one thing, alhamdulillah (grateful).

I'm not going to put any expectation throughout 2012 but what i can promise you that there will be more exciting and refreshing new creative work line up, including my first ever solo exhibition.

Talking about career milestone during my presentation at TEDxMMU. Photo courtesy of TEDxMMU

Lunch break after I had presented my talk. Photo courtesy of TEDxMMU

Meantime, feel free to visit my photo album of my recent trip to Tanah Aina, Raub, Pahang, http://on.fb.me/tiJ8aT and Bali, Indonesia. http://on.fb.me/vHLGhV

Thank you to everyone, and have a joyful, prosperous new year with more positive energy, affections and smile!

_

Does Rebranding of a brand really necessary?

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:15:00 +0000

I had a discussion with my fellow Digital Malaya collective; Abby, (my sister) and Faiz Akhbar after finish setting up our Behance Malaysia 1st group exhibition for Kuala Lumpur Design Week 2011. We're quite fascinated with the recent Maybank new corporate rebranding. People are so excited with the new change. I actually admire the new look especially the typeface use. It looks so 'comel'.

But what they fail to see above this rebranding are the long-term damages that would effect the entire institution. Imagine, they would appoint an agency and spend about half-a-million account to restructure and rebrand. Yes, hoorey to the agency but will that be all? what would happen next after the rebrand?

Maybank, founded in 1960 with revenue of RM12.87 billion in 2010, now, have to spend more money to update their branch's signage, and we're not talking just in Malaysia but the entire South East Asia, New York, London, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Hong Kong and other parts of the world. They also need to replace their existing collaterals and merchandise (imagine bag packs, plush toy, coin box, umbrella, uniforms, t-shirts, etcetera have to reproduce with the new logo), change their stationary (letterhead, etc) and later to re-produce Maybank staff's access pass (tag) to more than 40,000 Maybank staff. To add, they need to spend more money to update the system with the new logo from the intranet system to online websites, mobile apps (iPhone/iPod/iPad) that also includes almost 3,000 (less or more) automated teller machines around the country. Not to mention, their subsidiaries and associates have to also update themselves from business cards, to brochures, magazines, websites and others. Now to get things done they would have to outsource or open tender and hire more agencies to execute those changes and to strategize in many years to come, which will lead to more waste of money down the drain. Can all of this be done in a year? Absolutely not.

The loss is not only time but above all, the capitol that can be more greater to be utilize to support and contribute to the industry. I felt that they should release more grants to local entrepreneur so that they can progress and re-invest, push more awareness in outreach programs, educate the kids about savings and smart spending, and to support the community as a whole to double the progress of our country's economy. And at the crucial time where we face global economic turmoil, is this what we want to inspire and encourage others to adapt the the concept of 'spent wisely'?

I will let you decide what's best ;)

Perhaps Maybank staff would now get lower bonus by year-end? God knows.... because usually with a better reward (gratitude) to their staff, it will motivate them to work better with more efficiency....

_

Janakan Kreativiti Anda Dengan Adobe Creative Suite 5.5

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Tue, 31 May 2011 09:39:00 +0000

Pelancaran perisian versi terbaru Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 baru-baru ni sekali lagi memberikan kuasa maksima dalam membangunan kandungan Interaktif untuk media baru terutama ekslusif buat pengguna peranti tablet dan telefon mudah alih seperti iPad, Blackberry Playbook, Android dan juga yang lain.

Sebagai seorang peserta program ‘Pengaruh Adobe”, saya dipilih untuk menyentuh beberapa fungsi terbaru di dalam perisian Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 terutamanya InDesign 5.5 dan Flash Catalyst 5,5 yang memberi kreativiti tanpa terhad dengan penggunaan tool yg berfungsi utk mempermudahkan produksi rekaan terutamanya bagi industri penerbitan majalah digital dan buku elektronik terutama bagi pengguna peranti tablet seperti iPad, Playbook, Samsung Galaxy Tab, dan lain lain.

Sebagai pembina kandungan interaktif, kualiti & efisiensi yang menggunakan perisian seperti Adobe InDesign 5.5. berlipat ganda dalam membina portfolio untuk iPad yang ternyata tidak mustahil. Ia menjadikan produk yang kita ingin sampaikan memberikan impak yang positif dan berkesan. InDesign yang dahulunya menerhadkan penggunaan terbitan secara digital, kini, ia memudahkan pengguna untuk menerbitkan majalah digital dan buku digital yang boleh dipasarkan di merata dunia.

Antara fungsi-fungsi yang menarik minat saya adalah seseorang pengguna tidak perlu mempunyai latarbelakang pengaturcaraan komputer seperti ActionScript, HTML, XML dan lain-lain untuk membuat majalah berbentuk digital, ini semua tidak mustahil dengan perisian Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5.5.

Apa itu Flash Catalyst? Ia adalah sebuah perisian rekaan interaksi hebat yang memberikan anda transformasi kandungan kreatif dari Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator dan Firework menjadi sebuah projek interaktif yang begitu canggih, konsistan dan berkesan.

Flash Catalyst juga berintergrasi dengan satu lagi aplikasi iaitu Flash Builder 4.5 yang memberi ruang bagi pembina kandungan mobil untuk mencipta aplikasi-aplikasi mobil Flex atau ActionScript® yang boleh memberikan lebih kreativiti contohnya aplikasi yang dapat melakar sesuatu lukisan secara digital dengan sentuhan jari pada skrin tablet yang dapat menghasilkan sesuatu karya seni atau rekaan tanpa mengotorkan tangan dengan alatan-alatan seperti cat minyak, cat air, berus dan lain-lain.

Kini, bukan saja kita dapat melihat sekadar kandungan pasif dalam sesebuah majalah digital atau buku elektronik malah berpeluang menghayati sesuatu kandungan dengan paparan gambar paranoma yang boleh dialih diserata layout majalah (pan & zoom), memperbesarkan sesuatu imej, menonton video secara langsung dari peranti tablet dan juga memainkan fail berbentuk animasi.

Bukankah begitu mudah untuk kita membina sesuatu kandungan interaktif yang dapat meluaskan kreativiti kita? Inilah masanya untuk anda menerokai keistimewaan yang dipaparkan dalam versi terbaru Adobe Creative Suite 5.5!

Untuk maklumat lanjut, sila layari laman web Adobe dan muat turun demo versi terbaru CS 5.5

_

Creativity with PencilBrush

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Sun, 08 May 2011 09:05:00 +0000

The latest groundbreaking trend for illustrators and artistes is the PencilBrush, a hi-end yet user-friendly and innovative pencil that works like a brush, just the way you want it.

Bigbrosworkshop had invited me to attend an 'Introduction to PencilBrush' workshop curated by the creator himself, Alex Tarusha. Alex had demonstrated us the fastest tricks and tips to draw portraiture or figure using Pencil Brush and it took me just 3 minutes to produce something that I would normally achieve in 30 mins or so. Among top Malaysian illustrator such as Michael Chuah (Gilamon), KidChan (The Illustrator), 100Tentacles, ActionTintoy, Kenji @ BlackFriday, UrbanCreatures, Lisa Lee, Najib a.k.a Artech, Kenzy, MAWS along others.

We had such an enlightening experience and the outcome of using Pencilbrush is truly unexpected and different from our usual stroke that most of us had achieved using permanent marker.

"A handheld tool that is as simple as charcoal, gives you the precision of a mechanical pencil and the sketchy feel of a normal pencil. In short, a smart tool that offers large area coverage and a sharp tip for details that at the same time can serve as a dynamic liner. All this in one single tool with just one tip!" - Alex.

PencilBrush gives a different, extended volume of stroke, 3-4 times faster from a single pencil could achieve. It's a great exercise and it provide you a greater consciousness of how you control your tool in producing different outcome from different movement and control.

PencilBrush, (RM 89.90 Retail Price) is available at selected art store and stationary shop like Art Friend, The Gardens Midvalley & Venus Art & Stationery, No. 90, Jalan Petaling, Kuala Lumpur and Cziplee in Bangsar. I'll update you more location of how you can own this fascinating tool to create wonderful artworks. You can also contact Bigbrosworkshop via email to purchase your order: info[at]bigbrosworkshop.com or visit http://www.bigbrosworkshop.com to place your order.

Meantime, checkout the video tutorials available at Pencilbrush.com.

Video Intro:

Photos from the workshop:

From left: Tintoy, Chunwoei & wife, Helen, Muid (me), Alex Tarusha, Euseng, Kenji, Shy (from JB), Suki, Michael Chuah (sitting) & Lisa Lee (Liselle).

Photoshop: Working With Patterns

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 06:10:00 +0000

User level: Intermediate
Application required: Adobe Photoshop (CS3 above)

This is a simple screen-shot tutorial on how to create interesting patterns for any creative work including book covers, cover art, digital art and so on. Youtube offers several tutorial on how to use the Photoshop tools, you can search for the tutorials there I hope you guys enjoy and produce an interesting outcome. ;-)

Let's begin!

01. Open a blank canvas; use Pen Tool to draw your desired shape.

02. Duplicate the floral and change to a different color.

and go to FILTER>LIQUIFY.

Select the desired amount of the brush and push the tip of the flower to create more curve.

03. Then you enhance by adding gradient to the flower's interface

You can enable your grid view to ensure it's symmetrical (balance)

Moving in with patterns

04. After you finish enhancing or modifying your shape (Flower), duplicate it in a new layer. Select the TRANSFORM tool and Resize it smaller, just nicely visible to create a pattern.

05. Hide the original shape (flower) layer. Please make sure the background is set to transparent (You can hide your background layer)

06. Highlight the resized shape, then go to EDIT > DEFINE PATTERNS.

Rename your pattern so that when you want to use it, it's easier to look.

07. Create a new layer, go to EDIT > FILL IN PATTERN. Your canvas will automatically fill with the repeated shape (flower) to create an interesting pattern.

Play around with other tool to make your layout more interesting but simple. Don't overdo.

You can also go to your background canvas layer and fill in with background color.

Result

You can then insert text or image. Here is the final product, my upcoming e-book cover. Enjoy!

I will add more digital artwork samples that utilize the pattern technique to create other form of arts. Bookmark and don't forget to RT this! Thank you and stay creative!

When A Support is Not A Support

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 10:43:00 +0000

Two months back, I was introduced to amazingly wonderful people from The Center for Creative Communication (CCC) in Shizuoka, Japan to join together with Bigbrosworkshop to this prestigious conference called the Asia Design Conference 2010, Shizuoka, Japan.

Si Juan, mayor of Shizuoka, Mr Zenkichi Kojima & me

Eric Chen, me, Larry & Jackson Tan in Malaysia showcase at CCC Japan

Me and Tomoa, Director of Creative Commons Japan

With +81 Magazine's director, Satoru Yamashita, me, Taka Nakanishi and her friend.

More photos of my Japan trip available here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=317934&id=57937932003

Joining us is our neighbor, Jackson Tan and his team (the black angels) from Singapore, Eric Chen & Larry from Taiwan, Daisung Kim from South Korea, Laurence from iDN, Hong Kong, Gino Woo (Woogi, whom we met back in 2009's KL Design Week) from Shanghai. This conference would be complete entirely if we have participants from Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand so that we can discuss and gain tremendous input from each S.E. Asian countries.

What is interesting about this conference is that each country showcase their excellent portfolios from and discuss about their current situation that is happening in their creative industry.

Like Korea, the government does not support their creative industry to provide funds or support, not like Singapore or Malaysia. In Singapore however, everyone seems pampered by their government's privileges towards the support in arts & design industry, while we, in Malaysia still struggle to find that support. By support does not mean the government itself, but the people, Malaysians.

The biggest concern in Malaysia is that the people still have the 3rd world mentality and aren't able to support any art-related events or design conference due to their 'budget constrain' and whine about how expensive our events are, when both government and private institution offers free access to seminars and conference. The only problem is that we, Malaysian doesn't even bother or care to attend or they could never accept any feedback or critic be it negative or constructive because they only want to hear what they want to hear.

I remember hosting a Creative Commons event where I provide them free access to the event, provided food but no one bother to care about it and show no physical support.

One of our 'genius' excuse or reasons:

Students who can't afford to come to our event but have enough money to buy themselves an expensive gadget, expensive clothes
Professionals who can't spare time to even participate and some do provide statement that some tickets to local conference are too expensive, but they don't have problem paying RM300 for 3 jugs of beer instead of gaining great knowledge and education or simply ignorant to bother about our events.
Double-standard. Those who aren't well known are being discriminated especially by the media.
Malaysians are so particular and 'scared' to go out because it will waste their money by paying for their petrol and parking just to attend an event.
The advertising cannot work together with the architecture industry because each and everyone thinks that they are too important that none can brush their ego's off to do something noble.

All of these reason are unbelievably ridiculous because they refuse to support such initiative and became ignorant to proclaim there's no local event or government is not doing things to support our creative industry. There's even a question if it's a Malay organized event or Chinese organized event. Everything had to be color on top of everything.

Other countries like Indonesia would be so happy and privilege to have these kind of event lining up in their city, while we Malaysians can never be grateful enough to even acknowledge, appreciate us and always put a stop to any group who have the passion to host or initiate an event or a design showcase. Everyone start to close doors instead of opening doors to opportunity in collaboration and networking to increase a greater skill-trading between other sector in the creative industry. Everything is too monotonous.

What we should learn is to show our support instead of whining and complaining things. When we don't move forward, we can never catch up other countries to be on par in terms of state-of-the-art technology and innovation, such as Japan and other countries, even the closest one to us, which is Singapore.

It's a shame that we can't even get any politician to endorse or support us, while here in Shizuoka Japan, even the mayor would come to our show and show appreciation to support us.

This is what went wrong with Malaysians. The attitude of "Who cares! What's In It For Me?". Because when you don't care, it's how we can never see progression to our creative economy.

We have tons and tons of talented creative individuals who make Malaysian proud, from Jimmy Choo to Tan Eng Huat's wonderful talent in illustrating top comic studios from Marvel, DC, we have Milx, Aadi Salman, Mohammad Yazid, Heavymetal & Imaginex's wonderful creation of the Wars of The Worlds the Animation, Upin & Ipin or Saladin the 3D animated series, where most Malay muslim in this country is trying to go against this project that I would consider a noble effort made and it's to be proud of because it's 100% made by Chinese, Malays, Indians, Sabahan, Sarawakian and other Malaysians who then became a family along the process of this project, but others don't see it. They only see figures that overcloud their judgement.

It's a shame how we (or those who try to pitch this account before and lost to produce the animated series or did not get a job interview as animators would provoke others to hate) became so insecure and vulnerable to see Malaysian talent emerge and try to find any way to put us down to the ground and these negative conservative people shred our effort due to their temper-tantrum towards government and we creative people, became the victim.

My sister, Abby, just wrote an interesting article. I encourage you guys to read and to understand what's really going on with our country besides the lack of support that I have wrote in this blog.

'I'm Not Going Anywhere' - By Abby Latif: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/breakingviews/article/im-not-going-anywhere-abby-latif/

Creative Gathering: Behance 2nd Meetup

Another great session with members of Behance Malaysia. Check out our video ;-)

No Art, No Fun

Can't even begin to explain eversince I going my new workplace, I didn't have the chance to put my hands down to work on any artwork except for this.

Ok, later ;)
_

Making An Art Worth Inspiring

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 17:23:00 +0000

I Am An Artist

About four months ago, i had express my intention via my Facebook and Twitter updates that I'm planning on leaving the creative world (cough, "retiring") to focus on my new interest in i) Law (Multimedia/Internet Act), ii) Museology and iii) Numismatics (sorry, not into that typical designer-move-to-photography). As mention in my previous blog post, I had been facing such a great roller-coaster ride by being in rock-bottom, from unstable business (unbelievable bad paymaster/fung fei kei cases), to battling my stomach Tumor that had affected my health, lost weight and to my paranoia of friends who gave remark on my appearance.

Three months later, I believe God had listen to my do'a and prayers and gave me with so much bless and love. Besides that I put on weight from 53kg to now, 58kg, I almost regular activities from my weekly 15km run, and wake up to the morning beautiful sunshine, either driving heading toward the Kuala Lumpur city or train ride, working as a blue-collar as a 'marketer' in a bank (Yep, probably comes as much of a surprise), I can never shred this artistic blood of mine away. Good Karma kicks in, like Paul Arden said, 'Don't look for next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity.' So I took on a new challenge facing a different working pattern and new working environment. Alhamdulillah, things are working just (fundamentally) fine. Work is work, stress is everywhere but you'll cope with it because you had been working for a decade in this industry, so whats to nag about?

So then came along another opportunity as I was chosen as Ambassador from my country by Behance Network, one of top creative networking circle that was awarded by numerous companies, publication offline and online, from "10 Most Creative Small Business Companies" by FAST COMP@NY, to Computer Arts UK, Mashable and others.

Introducing the 18 Behance Ambassador. Visit the rest of Behance Ambassador here

Our first Behance Malaysia Meetup @ Artista Cafe, Tropicana Mall, PJ

So for those who like to hang out with us, gain experience, learn new tips or advices, have creative discussion and hands-on creative collaboration projects, register a Behance profile and join our group here. Our next meet-up will be at Wondermilk Cafe, 13th November 2010.

‘When It Can't Be Done, Do It. If You Don't Do It, It Doesn't Exist ’, Paul Arden

Galeri Petronas and Petronas's Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra had took a giant leap in bringing new things around their table. I got a call from the wonderful people of Galeri Petronas inviting me to join an interesting project called the 'Painted Notes', a collaboration with the mighty talented and world-class musicians of Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Of course, I couldn't say yes right away because I'm working, as I'm no longer running my own business. After I got approved by my awesome superiors and management of my agency, I start to mobilizing my ideas and plans to make it happen. I was introduce by this amazing Malaysian Conductor named Harish Shankar who now resides in Germany. I even manage to get great advice from my friend, Milx who I met a night before the performance.

For the first time in Malaysia, and for the first time by Fine Artist (Khairul Azmir a.k.a MeMe) and Digital Artist (me), we both set history to become the first to collaborate with musicians in this prestigious Dewan Philharmonik Petronas doing a live (real-time) artwork. I was honored, awe and bless. I'm so grateful to our Lord al-Mighty Allah. I thank Galeri Petronas and applaud them for giving us, Digital Artists platform to let Malaysians learn what is Digital Art and the processes of it's creation. Thanks to those who came, i couldn't be more happier and flattered by your warm support. Check out the video of our performance.

Land of The Rising Sun

Bigbrosworkshop had selected us to be a part in another prestigious exhibition, this time it's in Japan! Called INSIGHT, this exhibition promises everyone internationally how Malaysian talents really got what it takes to inspire with their artworks, including Kenji, Stephen Lau, Driva Lo, Luk, Chun Woei, Najib Tumiran (a.k.a Artech), Fariz Hanapiah, among others, and me!

I will be showcasing my work in two different city in Japan; Shizuoka & Tokyo, from 26th October til 4th. I haven't been travelling for so long. In my own expense, I felt it's the best opportunity to showcase my work in a different location with different culture and different creative view.

I just hope I have enough energy to divide myself with work and 'vacation'. I just look forward to experience Japanese culture including getting myself a copy of Naruto Shippuuden's Manga! Ittadakimas!

Thank you for reading, may you find your positive energy, have a great day and God bless.
_

The Malaysian Designer Survival Kit (What You Need To Know)

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:11:00 +0000

Warning: Heavy written content, it would sound narrow but it's a real fact that many need to aware when dealing with either the client or designer. This article is not suitable for lazy designers who don't like to read.

Intro

Getting a job here as a designer can be very easy, because the fact is that Malaysian designers are mostly UNDERPAID. While most think we, designers are glamourous, stylish at work, go out to party, only little aware the circumstances that creative people have to go through to make one single design work for them and sell to their clients. They work under constant pressure. Above all, many local designers are clueless about their future plans and direction. This is because they are blinded by fame or popularity, getting quantity of fans rather to keep improving their skills and gain as much experiences. Before we start the basic survival kit, let's see what's our current concern among designers, client and our country itself.

What others deceive designers & freelancers?

Produce Killer Portfolio.
Gain more clients. If you have Nike or Adidas in your list, you are already a mega-star designer but most don't know that these 'branded' clients are the worst paymasters.
Open studio so you'll be a cool design entrepreneur. But you forgot about the DBKL/MBSA regulation and rules about signage that would destroy your 'brand' with 'studio pengiklanan'
They teach you techniques & skills. Learn HTML5, etc but they don't teach you about copyright & Intellectual Property. (They don't tell you to watermark your work)
Most designers put awesome branded clients in their portfolio to impress people, BUT not all aware that these designers work under agencies. Again, it's agencies/companies portfolio, you the designer never got the account in your own effort. You don't pitch for it, the CEO, MD, the CD, Account Directors & managers are the one who pitch and got the project for the company. Don't claim glory over something that you don't get it under your own belt. You work with a dedicated creative team.

What you should know about the designers here:

They have an amazing skills and techniques & they are able to adapt a lot of design style.
Asian designers are so talented but they also love to copycat other design style, hence no personal style or identity created. Everyone wants to be somebody they adore, not want to be for who they are.
Don't like to step out of their shell to learn other field (Graphic Designer to Flash or Print, DTP, 3D, Architecture, Photography, etc)
They make commercial work too personal, and once their design had been rejected, they whine like a baby. (Business IS business, attach NO emotional/personal feeling to work. Unless you work with clients who )
They do what they like, NOT what the client want (Remember the 'Missing Cat' Design Poster case?)
Our designers have a big problem in communication skills; none can understand a brief or misunderstood them.
Ignorant to understand the current economic situation in this small industry
Lavish spending on unnecessary possession or things that does not contribute to future investment
Too greedy in project ownership, NO teamwork or team effort. Usually in advertising, AD or CD usually like to take full credit instead of appreciating their team's effort. (I had experience this myself back in those days)
Mostly don't bother about design competition, creative gathering, design conference, exhibition and claim there's no support from the small industry. If they do attend one design conference, its a big deal for them. When a person won a competition, everyone would anticipate on post-morterm such as 'yeah, he should've not won the 1st prize because the artwork doesn't make sense', or 'that conference sucks'.
Usually the ones in the advertising would barely participate in creative conferences; because they are too busy with datelines or just being 'double standard' to mix around with the underdog (non-famous) designers/creative individuals.
Most Malaysian designers CANNOT accept critics, either its constructive. They just like to hear what they want to hear. They love compliment and felt threaten and hostile when someone show them a weak spot.
Other countries recognize our talent more than the local due to less awareness & appreciation
Malaysian designers are mostly insecure about others achievement & success. They just couldn't get enough of what they posses. Then someone put one initiative, they just felt unsupportive and always look out for weaknesses.
Most of the designers here don't have an organized portfolio nor a website
Instead of learning, they spend too much time on social networking sites that does not improvise their skill
They bother nobody except for themselves & expect others to treat them as superstars (or taikor) = DIVA
Above all, most of them are underpaid
That's why most use pirate Adobe softwares because the softwares are too expensive. Even for those who use original license Adobe software, the helpline or care support from Adobe is 0% satisfaction
Designers want to implement ideas, but sometimes their ideas are shut by their superior or clients who refuse inputs.

What you should know about Malaysian clients:

Huge gap of understanding art & design process. They thought designers use wizard or plugin to create work in seconds.
Most client who appointed vendor entrusted them to develop creative campaign, but because they, client, don't understand the nature of creative process, they are either left behind or not aware about it. Hence, vendors could take advantage of timeline and charges. There are clients who pay RM5k to produce amazing TVC but there's also a client who pays RM50,000 for a TVC but produce lousy-crappy ad even far worst than RTM montages.
There are some amazing clients you can brag about, who understand design process and respect creativity and it's price tag. But you don't get that everyday.
Clients would thought design is easy to execute and cheap. They don't question if they spend RM5,000 to buy a Louis Vuitton handbag but question if designers quote them RM500 for a mock design.
Everyone thought design worth below RM1,000 and for a logo design, they think building their corporate identity or brand cost only RM100. That's why their brand are so cheap.
Malaysian clients have this attitude of 'no, i have some design sense, let me put some ideas into it' instead of trusting designers capability & ability to provide a solution.
They felt they needed to be too superior and vendors or people like us should worship them due to their "gila-kuasa" attitude.
Most of creative campaign are injected with personal agenda; politics or just to impress boss to get promoted
They don't understand a lot of things, especially when it comes to technology and backend. They thought technology is too simple & too easy that they thought purchasing a dedicated hosting is cheap.
Most local client fear of putting an upfront payment to designers so that they can flee/run away from paying when their stakeholders cancelled the project.
It's all about 3rd party engagement. Usually the case of government contractors sub-con. to small/ SME companies to cut down the cost and profit to their own pocket.
The 'Ask For Quotation' clients. Usually in any large company/agency, finance department will require 3 quotation from vendors (us). Usually they just ask for quotation to be submitted to them, but the project had never been awarded. I encourage those who ask for quotation, we charge them RM100 because costing require research & time to do it. We're not Xerox copy machine who can produce according to your demand.
Malaysian clients love the idea of putting entertainment element in their work 'to sell'. They think young/teen people would love it but eventually, us, adult who have profession are the actual one who will buy their product. Take MyEG for example. Such horrifying musical TVC, using other else's music composition when local people can produce a greater TVC score. but at the end, that target audience, the one who uses MyEG services are age 25 above, adults like us. Those teens still live with their parents or funded by their rich parents. :)
Clients are mostly bound by fear in Malaysia censorship. It makes our creative process a hassle. Last time, Government agencies are forbid to wear anything that resemble to rival parties, such as Green, Sky Blue, Red, or have imagery of rocket, rounded shape, moon and such.

What you don't know about what the Government & other groups is doing:

Government DO give out grants and funding for creative entrepreneurs. MOSTI and along other government agencies give out creative grant each year. But most Malaysian don't bother and ALWAYS blame government for not doing enough. Actually, it is us who are not doing enough to improve ourselves because we don't want to take responsible and always have someone to blame.
We, non-profit organization or individual collective, design associations throw free conference, free seminars, invited top noch speakers from all over the world. We put 3 days creative conference for just RM300 but still people whine about it, but they don't whine if they spend RM300-500 for a bottle of liquor/whiskey/beer and then get drunk & barf on their way back home.
There's a lot of art bazaars, it takes two place to give the best example; Arts for Grabs at The Annexe Central Market, and Bazaar Seni in National Art Gallery. In fact, each year we have events like Urbanscapes. But Malaysian make ticket a big deal. They still can't afford to pay RM35 for a ticket. Everything want for free. We are not talking about students who can't afford. Professional who thinks the tickets are expensive are just cheapskate.
NGO host a lot of art events and call up volunteers. We see volunteers came all the way from Singapore, Australia, United Kingdom BUT Malaysian don't bother to offer their expertise to contribute in helping the orphanage or youth to give impact in that creative awareness.
Government host a lot of open-tenders and pitch but the first thing Malaysians would think of is assuming about the 'ah, tak dapat sebab kita bukan Melayu'. Apparently those non-bumi who tried get awarded with many projects. Please lah, it's so last decade to put racial-barriers and assuming things. If you don't trust your talent and capability, stop doing what you dream to do and do other things besides creative.
There's a lot of collective groups & association had form to help give designers and creative people platform to promote their works and other types.

(The list to be add more upon feedback and comments)

So what are the basic survival kit?

Make sure you HAVE a diploma, a degree in selected field. If you don't, make sure you're a hard-work-self-taught-designer. If you only depend on nothing but PMR & SPM, you have small chance to work because a lot jobless Malaysian own diploma and degree. You'll be very lucky. Remember, Malaysia is all about qualification. Unless you are super, super talented & creative.
Learn as much knowledge and skills possible from the internet to gain wide technique, skills and knowledge. Visit youtube.com, Photoshop tutorials, etc.
Make sure you get headhunted if you're good. If you're not good, improve your skills and portfolio to get recognize. Hanging out with famous designers does not secure your establishment.
Learn your rights. Most company don't cover your insurance because they want to run away from it, especially EPF and income tax responsibilities. Learn about Company & Employers Act 1955
Set your 10 years career timeline on how you want to achieve yourself. Always have long term goals.
Make sure your insurance is covered in a company so that if any health problem accure, you have an insurance.
Attend creative functions & events to keep yourself notable and mix around to trade experiences
Never, ever go to design forum (those phpBB). 99% Design forum have full negative influence that allows you to be insecure and prejudice for your environment. I seen so many designers from forum who could not settle for less. These people are kids and like to inject 'weird' idea to provoke people to hate due to career failure or fail to gain fame or profit-making.
Seek career advices from experience people, not from lecturers or your colleague.
Have pride in your work: respect your capability & ability. Be motivated and don't question or doubt yourself. When you love yourself & love your work, people will also love you.
Trust your instinct and be firm in your decision. Don't get influence easily by others when it comes to decision-making.

How to get a free online portfolio?

Register at http://www.behance.net . Check out http://be.net/muidlatif (see how short this URL was given!) to see how you can sort out your portfolio, get constructive feedback and study on the statistic of people's view to their favorite style of work that you had published online. From there, you will learn and continue develop other greater style for a greater creative impact.

Hope this article helps and profit your knowledge.

Kre8tivity in Worldcup 2010: Typeface designs for #Ger #Uru

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:11:00 +0000

The past two months had been one of my most memorable event, the FIFA Worldcup. Germany, Spain & Uruguay are my best favorite team and each match they play was epical and very entertaining.

As a designer, I intrigued and fascinated by the creativity in worldcup; Jersey design and typeface! One of my favorite typeface design is by Paul Barnes, who created Crepello & Olembe for Puma Pace, while awesome Brazilian Designer, Yomar Augusto with such powerful & solid font called 'Unity' for Adidas.

For those who like to checkout these historical typeface Guru: Paul Barnes and Yomar Augusto.

The featured typeface 'Unity' in this article is copyright to Yomar Augusto & Adidas.

If you're interested in purchasing your favorite team's jersey, check out http://www.uksoccershop.com

E³: Explore. Experiment. Evolve.

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:44:00 +0000

E³: Explore. Experiment. Evolve video is a creative processes I had developed in conjuction of my exhibition held at the Penang State Art Gallery from 17th - 30th June 2010.

This video process shows you step by step (in high-level/general showcase) of how we can be inspired by one subject matter to explore through art manipulation and stylization, experimenting it's content with artwork arrangement and layout, and evovle, by finalizing in artwork for shows and merchandise. Check out my video posted in http://youtu.be/H0-GHOXXHTw or via my facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=402112953806&ref=mf

RT: @JoshuaDavis ROCKING !!! always have loved your style and colors Muid !

RT: @DrewEuropeo My dear!! If I inspire you, well you inspire me back! I love your recent experiments they are just sooo rich! Please don't get tired of doing the things you love to do, they're just amazing man :) muuahhzzz lots of love!!

RT: @netdivermag
E3 = Explore + Experiment + Evolve. Creative processes that my friend Muid Latif - @mrmoed - shared. Can apply to? Everything.

Thanks to my guru's; Joshua Davis, Drew Europeo & Carole Guevin of Netdiver who spent their time to watch my video.

God bless all of you who enjoy watching my video podcast. Do share with your friends, especially lectures, students and others who love art & design. =)

_

p/s: Apologize for my English pronunciation, the US English was intended. I would love to do a Manglish but most won't understand my local humor. LOL ;-)

The Freelance World

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:15:00 +0000

by Muid Latif, Edited by Angelia Ong

Many magazines or online portals encourage young, creative individuals to go freelance. According to these publications and others, freelancing is considered as the latest creative career trend, but they fail to enlighten us about the challenges that we would have to go through in order to survive, especially during the current global economic turmoil.

What they do teach us are merely short term advice and knowledge-sharing. They persuade creative individuals (such as designers, photographers, film-makers, etc) that with a killer portfolio or certain skill sets, you can win awards to get recognized, and expand your clientele beyond belief. Unfortunately, not all have these kinds of privileges due to lack of motivation, moral support and a comfortable environment that surrounds them.

However, they don’t share the harsh reality of what a freelancer have to go through. It is never mentioned what you can do when a client refuses to hire you for superficial reasons, such as ethnicity, political agendas and so. It would be beneficial if these articles would talk about how your business will change once you’ve reached a certain age or parenthood comes a-calling.

As a matter of fact, many freelancers are not equipped with basic knowledge about long term business survival. Just ‘looking good for clients’ is stressed upon, as opposed to ensuring that you also have a solid foundation. The industry does not arm us with knowledge on the following: protecting ourselves, both from legal and copyright standpoints, how to protect our creative work, ensuring payment is on time and our work doesn’t get stolen before payment is made, how to manage projects using a proper management system, how to organize our accounts, managing our taxes and most importantly, how to develop client relationships to gain repeat business. Some would expect to be spoon-feed when you can explore and learn many things from the web and through readings.

With all that is happening in the world today, how can we ensure a promising future? What if a natural disaster strikes us without a sign? Your life is pretty much ‘doomed’ when your workstation washed by a flood or earthquake. How much of your “assets” would you have lost? Do you think that the client would care to acknowledge and understand the situation that you are currently facing? Absolutely not.

What are the measures that can be taken to ensure the security of our work and in turn ensure our future remains less chaotic. That is why we need to take the above perspectives seriously. We need to care about things that evolve around us and we cannot allow ignorance to destroy our very own careers.

As of today, many freelancers who step into this creative industry are mostly fresh graduates who have had zero experience in this industry and the only thing going for them now is talent and skills. Those two attributes are not enough to ensure that a professional and pleasant attitude will be provided by them towards a client. This may have an adverse effect as then people may become reluctant to hire freelancers or small scale design business.

All they lack is guidance and mentor support. Colleges or art schools do not teach their students about fostering good relationships, about discipline, about working ethics, about how to write documents such as project briefs, contact reports, or following up with clients feedback and requests, and most importantly, they have no clue how to quote an appropriate figure for their efforts and work. That is why a lot of freelancers these days does not have decent time management and are always swamped with projects and this only hampers the growth of the creative industry.

For example, we have art directors or designers who have permanent jobs in an agency, yet still go out to do freelance while there are freelancers who are struggling to compete. Sometimes this greed forces these freelancers to lower their prices, just to compete against those who already have a fully paid day job. Sadly, some freelancers dropped their creative rates so much so to design a logo for just $50 dollars or $300 for a website, or worse still do things for free. This is killing the market. Clients would go for the cheaper alternative or failing which, badger you over your professional rates, based on their “market research”.

Is this how a healthy creative industry is supposed to work? What about the SME (Small Medium Enterprise) companies out there? They also have to find ways to financially support their project managers, copywriters, designers, programmers, accountants and others. Should we allow ourselves to affect the balance of the creative economy?

As We Borrow This Body from Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:18:00 +0000

My years of being a designer had definitely destroyed my biological clock. As a result, most of us, including myself had became unstable; emotionally and health.

Conditionally we are aging slowly and unconditionally, our passion still runs in our blood stream that allow us to do more stuff than we ever expected. We are frequently experiencing insomnia and our mind keep distributing ideas and creativity more than just a normal person due to our excellent gift of visualizing things through our mind.

This ability, to this day I would say it's rather impressive and each day i began to felt thankful and grateful that God allow me to use this body that I borrowed from Heaven.

Long ago I had talked about "Creative Breakdown", but now, i'm not sure if i'm experiencing the same thing this time of the day. I cannot define why in mind I wanted to do many things but my body just keep lagging.

So tell me, does our age makes our creativity drain out or we are just in denial of not to perform due to our unorganized time and efficiency?

What's A Daily Life of Mine?

Make toast in the morning, make up bed, shower, laundry, wash dishes, send kids, watch news/TV, read magazine and off to work. At night, I will normally spend time to engage contacts through social networking to release some stress and later resume back work. I will normally sleep in the office if i'm too lazy. But I don't even know if the word lazy ever existed in my dictionary because it seems a lot of tasks keeps consuming my time and energy that I won't be able to focus entirely at work.

For now, I have:

Judging for CUTOUT Magazine Cover Design Competition & Talk at Dasein Art College
Finish Atilia's Indah Album Art Cover & Perintis Website
Send Taman Tamadun Islam revise updates to GreenMelon
My lyrical dance performance for World Dance Day at MAPKL, Solaris Dutamas on the 30th
Kuala Lumpur Design Week on 1st week of May,
Digital Malaya Project Showcase & Talk at Petronas Gallery on 22nd May
Solo/Group Exhibition in Penang Art Museum June 2010

There's so many things I left out, so much things to do, even in this very stage I'm looking for creative interns to work with us at Digital Nusantara. *Sigh*. I don't even know if I do have a Personal Assistant (PA) when I did remember hiring one under my company. Am I just too unfocused to do anything? Or I just have to stop, retired without money (only depend on EPF retirement) or I work in a different corporate environment. God knows.

Some 'refreshment' impromptu dance video for my upcoming public performance at MAP KL, Solaris Dutamas this 30th April in conjunction of World Dance Day!

Engagement of Mutuality Through Toleration

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Drama, don't we all love drama in relationship? Everyone loves to show affection to one another during the short month relationship.

Then we start to show our true colors. There's arguments, question trust & doubts, why there's lack of attention, how it takes two to tango and etcetera. Because of these short-temper tantrum, we forget about being grateful and appreciate for the past things that both did to make relationship works. We expect things to much that we disvalue our ethics and our principe to believe in love without expectation, thus, everything falls apart and we start pointing fingers without blaming ourselves first.

I see all around me and most of them inspired me through their commitment. I myself cannot commit to such responsibility because I have a curse for it. The things I've done in the past, I have to admit it's been horrifying and each time I look back and evaluate, i felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself for being to obnoxious and paranoid, hence I am the one who actually broke my trust; to trust myself and let it flow the way it is, mainly because I am desperate to disallow myself to be confined with solitary. But I learn that I should scrap my habit of impressing a person to much about my ability and capability, because at the end of the day, when a person really like you, they will like you entirely for who you are, without you having to go and make yourself appeal and constantly crave for attention that you are a worthy person. Sometimes you are making yourself transparent and let others felt uncomfortable by your personality. It make you look dumb (yes I was talking about me too you know, haha).

But I like to change. I like to experiment myself, not in Lindsay Lohan way! If a person that i'm involved with can't change, I have to change. I have to find ways so that others will be inspired.

If not things wont work out, eventually it will end up in a horrible breakup. We don't want that do we? We don't want to be hated. We want to be loved and admired before and after. I learn that when we impressed a person that we like or when we started a relationship, it should be beautiful at the end.

But like I said, since most of us love drama, we love to brag or tell people that we've gone through hell. It's embarrassing the first thing when we fell in love, 'we cross ocean for you' and when we broke up 'let the shark consume your evil heart'. (I'm reminding myself as I've been through this situation before).

Then I met my best friend Vic. We had a long discussion about life, love and relationship and I would agree with her about forgiving and forget. We all heard about 'Forgive But Not Forgotten'. That 'wise quote' actually shouldn't be used because it shape ourselves to set a little hatred and revenge.

So one night, I had my prayer and I made my doa to God that I forgive everyone who had hurt me and had damaged my emotion to love. Believe me, after that prayers, my heart became lighter and i stop thinking about some past of mine that is so painful. It seems to go away.

I even had a chat with my long online friend who had become close friend, Rizal, about my personality expressed through social networking. Most of feedback I received; How furious I am, how negative I was when I put my status message. I do realize that it made me such vulnerable person and somehow kept repeating over and over again. But I am glad that I am aware of it and felt that I want to change. At least i'm not in denial! LOL Well, in a way I'm glad to have some friends who are honest to help spot my weakness so I am more self conscious and will make myself improve to become a better person.

Life can be so simple if you make it simple. I hope I can achieve that from time to time. God willing :-)

Have a nice day to all and everyone. Peace be upon you.

Here's something beautiful from Alanis Morissette's 'Hand In My Pocket'

I'm broke but I'm happy
I'm poor but I'm kind
I'm short but I'm healthy, yeah
I'm high but I'm grounded
I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed
I'm lost but I'm hopeful baby

What it all comes down to
Is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving a high five

I feel drunk but I'm sober
I'm young and I'm underpaid
I'm tired but I'm working, yeah
I care but I'm restless
I'm here but I'm really gone
I'm wrong and I'm sorry baby

What it all comes down to
Is that everything's gonna be quite alright
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is flicking a cigarette

And what it all comes down to
Is that I haven't got it all figured out just yet
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving the peace sign

I'm free but I'm focused
I'm green but I'm wise
I'm hard but I'm friendly baby
I'm sad but I'm laughing
I'm brave but I'm chickenshit
I'm sick but I'm pretty baby

And what it all boils down to
Is that no one's really got it figured out just yet
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is playing the piano

And what it all comes down to my friends
Is that everything's just fine fine fine
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is hailing a taxi cab

Watch: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22q12_alanis-morissette-hand-in-my-pocket_music

Sampah Masyarakat

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:51:00 +0000

I like to talk about my definition of 'sampah masyarakat' (a trash). I just witness two person close in life who are worthless, useless people, and may this post will give you an insight about human behavior and their ignorance.

Ecstasy, Viagra, Poppers is a huge 'drug' trend among Malaysian, especially clubbers who enjoy trance and rave music; particularly among gay/lesbian community and the entertainment industry. There's even more types of drugs I can list here, but let's just stick to the 'normal' ones.

I foresee that a person who have a career but yet uses substance for 'fun' which includes sex activities to be filthy and disgraceful. Sadly, more of those who took ecstasy came from a good family, or have proper education and profession. Well, some are jobless and became gigolo or male sex worker, male sex masseurs; just to earn a living. I thought it's pathetic. Seriously. No pride and dignity for selling your soul away just for the sake of substance or materialism. There's no value to your life for doing this.

There are so many side effects to this, and three important signs you can see in a person character; temper-tantrum (very bad temper), skeptical and physically, eyes turned yellowish. I witness this with my own eyes and I seriously loose my respect towards them. As the matter of fact, I never respect them because they are the one who choose to live a life so useless.

Shame on you! You are definitely deserved to be call a useless, worthless trash, or in Malay, 'sampah masyarakat'!

There's always a better solution when dealing a personal problem. That's why it's important to choose the right friends around who will provide continuous support & motivation for you. Faith is also the key of your belief to ensure you find your serenity & peace.

How Do You Define Your Life?

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:25:00 +0000

Note: Press keyboard CTRL+[+] (plus) to enlarge font size or [Apple]+[+] plus button.

Each person is bound to look at things in different perspective and this pretty much depends on family background, education, culture, religion and other factors that contribute to who they are today. A person who choose to confine themselves with solitary and think that the world is unfair, is actually one of the reason why civilization stop to grow with positive minds due to the attitude of 'don't bother what's around me'. Pretty much sad to see such negative upbringing with low self esteem, inferior complex, being obnoxious and prejudice over many things.

In the past and presence, I met few individuals who inspire and some who pretty much confine to their own realm. Much as I want to believe they have gone through tough times in their lives dealing with their problems, I see that there was no social engagement and interaction to help them fit themselves and create a circle of positive community, at least among their friends.

As a result, they hurt a lot of people by being too upfront about their problem, when you compare with what's going on in the world today, I shall say this does not benefit anything. There are people out there each day die of cancer, die of poverty, die due to racism and prejudism. People out there are struggling trying to live a better life, to pray for a longer life, while some choose to take risk to shorten their life by doing unhealthy things (smoke, drugs, sex, etc)

I for once, have problems of my own, it was crucial compared to those who think the world is going to end, but what I'm truly grateful. Whenever I'm lost, I have friends to help hold my shoulders and said 'it's going to be okay'.

I had recently been discovered with tumor (which is curable, insyaAllah) in my body but I did not make a huge fuzz about it. I have to take a lot of medication daily in order to sustain myself. Each day, I opt to project a better person out of me by doing so many things, so many wonderful things. I became more productive ever since I discovered my health problem. But that doesn't mean I have to give up. Sedangkan Iblis tak berhenti (don't give up) untuk membinasakan dan menjatuhkan umat manusia. Think about that!

For example, if you just came from a horrible relationship, doesn't mean you have to punish yourself and reject the affection and love from people that surrounds you. That shows how ungrateful you are, and when you have that kind of attitude, that's how karma takes place. KARMA happens when you neglect or ignore others that care for you, and when one day you crave for attention, and when give attention to someone and they don't respond to it, this is where you should look back and define your contribution in the past. When you do bad things to people, you can NEVER achieve happiness in life. never.

Remember, the law of balance is so fair, you have no idea that you actually rejected people because they won't be able to satisfy you. That's when you become a failure in engaging relationship, after meeting one person to the other because in the first place, you treated those who cared for you POORLY and u give them no attention, not even concern. You don't bother because you're practically 'done' with them.

When you treat people without care, when you neglected people who believe in you, than you had actually contract yourself of loosing your soul. What is left is just lust and temporary 'happiness' that does not benefit your own self. In fact, what you're about to do is harm yourself and others. What happen when you're 35 years old and your friends start leaving you because you don't want to change your character, your attitude? I believe some don't, and some turn into cold heart. God have mercy on them.

Start Believing, Fight For It.

Self-acceptance is important in life, it helps to shape you to be a positive person with persona and passion to inspire people. When you remove that border, that territory of yours, you starts to experience more wonderful things in life, more than you can imagine! (From left, two important love of friendship, Amin & Ashvina.)

We have to 'Pay It Forward' and can't expect good things in life to come as rapid so we can satisfied ourselves. We must do positive things in life in order to reach happiness. We have to start to LISTEN to advices. We must listen to the voices of those who are concern about you. We must also care.

So for those who choose to confine themselves, think about what are you doing to affect others. They give so much light and vibe for you, to cheer you up. At least appreciate this very moment or you will eventually end up in solitary and become hopeless.

Don't waste your precious life over the things you can't fulfill. Nothing, nothing is perfect in this world, to begin with. Be strong, have faith, have belief, start caring, start being grateful and start to learn how to appreciate things that surround you. You actually have friends who cares for you, so never push them away, never.

If you can't be a good person for your self, at least do it for the sake of your love for person that you care the most. If you ran out of option, it's never wrong to love God, because God had been given us affections more than we can ever imagine.

Pray for the ones who's you've lost. Let their soul be happy in heaven. Don't let them despair where you start loosing control over yourself. Each day, I pray for the one I've lost. I miss the late Kak Yasmin Ahmad, and I never miss a prayer and al-Fatiha for her. I want her to know that I'm justifying my life better, and want to be a lovable person who continue to inspire others. That's how she made that impact towards my life. May you rest in peace.

If you can't understand my points in this entry, then WATCH THIS VIDEO. It's a must!

There's always up and down in life, we can eventually shape ourselves better if we want to start living our life the right way. You have no idea how joyful it may be when we open our hearts and take opportunities to bring better prosper in life.

_

As I Look Into Your Eyes: The Sweetest Day

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:08:00 +0000

Interlude: There Is Love

Rumi draw our hearts with

"Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test."

The first post (considered!) will talk about affection. Kasih sayang, as I mention in my twitter give an ultimate connection from heart to soul. It deepens with tender and beyond emotions. It's a bond.

How I felt:

When the sweet glance of my true love caught my eyes, Like alchemy, it transformed my copper-like soul. I searched for Him with a thousand hands, He stretched out His arms and clutched my feet
- Rumi

People: Wonderful Friends

I gave love to people, and like others who knows me personally, I share love to people equally thus I created many bonds with people. I believe in spiritual love, a love that was not force to be apply in form of substance and discriminative. It's about giving and sharing love despite gender and age. When you are able to give love, others will love you more. It creates a better communication and alliance. It's not just about being friendly anymore, it's about self-aware and constant appreciation for the people and environment that had been contributed for a better motivation in one person, in this story, for me.

Life, as it is, has been great. It's blessed to be imperfect. Being a perfectionist makes you anal, ignorant, arrogant and self-centered because I was once that very person, it made me become sophisticated which does not welcome warm in person that surrounded me but more of getting hypocrisy from them. But the more imperfect you become, the more humble and 'rendah hati' you will be, and it helps you a lot to shape yourself better.

Sometimes, it's good to make fool out of yourself, become a clown, loose control, let temper loose you and get respond from people. When they give you advices, bark at you, you then able to spot your weakness, and you will become conscious more than you could possibly imagine.

31 Years of Life

Recently I celebrated my birthday. A week before I was down, God what a show I had pulled. It seems everyone start to talk about it, how I break loose. But God is Al Mighty, The Wise. When we ask for signs in our prayers, it will eventually show. It's the great power from the Above. Alhamdulillah.

31 is just a number, but what matters is how I decide to change my pattern of behavior, my ethics and to give more contribution in anyway. I hope this year I can explore more positive side of me, do more good deeds, help people a lot, experience more mount climbing and nature walks, spend more time with family rather to anti-social. Time is precious and I like to use it as much as I can.

I would like to thank everyone who showed up at my very-unexpected-birthday-dinner. I already told them that I don't want them to pull any surprises. I guess their love and friendship overtake my solitary-attitude of spending all by myself. LOL

Who turned up for the birthday dinner: Abby, Syiqin, Melissa, Radzi Aziz, YD Leong, Prakash, Eliza, Adi, Farah and Iskandar Ibrahim.

And my big thanks to those who make their time to send wishes via sms, calls, facebook & twitter:

(According to time/post) Aniqah (Kak Yong, my eldest sister), Family members: Afiqah, who SMS me, sweet!), Amin, who practically waited til 12am to send sms greetings, very sweet of you!, Dilip, my new BFF (LOL), Toñi Yáñez (thanks for your constant love), Sandra Pijlman (thanks!), Azri (Ku_E), Fynaz & Gjie, Simon So, Suzanne Loh, Cicilia (Jogja), Dina Zaman (bless u, thanks!), Magnus Bob (thanks Magnus x0x0x), Vic Fuad, Arafath Ibrahim, Anwar (Congrats on your promotion bro. God bless u for a better life!), Vivian Toh!, Kharis (TSB), Amirul (Astro), Faheem! (besame mucho amigo!), Asha Harker, Judge, Rafai Rahman, Suzie B (thanks Sis), Navin (Suzie's friend), Angelia Ong, Ahmad Suhaimi, Mizie, Sofiyah (Malayrish), Nik Azwaa, Nurul Nadia LSD (love u too babe), Andy Widodo, Maria Chantelle Tucker (Orcagirl, thank you so very much. God bless), Saiful Nizam (Perintis), CLICK! Magazine Hornyih & Mr Ho, Nagendran (Nagen!), Fz Kamaruddin, Haryany Mohamad (Noni), Lyanna Johan, Sarini 'Mystique Maya' (thanks sweety, God bless u too)! & 2H (Hasnul Hadi & Hasnul Nadzrin), Ray Shanker (thanks for Lion King's videoclip), Ahmad Tarmizi (thanks for your wonderful sms), Afai, Pate Othman, Haslina Ghazali, Faiz Akhbar, Zetty J. Zetty, Viking Karwur, Iesta Johnny Tiptra (thanks man!), Mel, Elly Kamal (hugs back), Arez Ezman (tak jumpa fruit slushee!), Si Juan, Donna Dee, Salmi Omar, Faiz Firman, Jay Gasper, Fazed (Fine Arts, UiTM), Andrew C.H Hsien, June Moh, Sharifah Razlin Jamalullail, Raja Norashikin (Oya), Halimi Saidi (thanks to both of u dear darlings!), Sam Kassim (thanks Chumoks!), Ashvina Marie, Jason Lamar Wright, Belanda (Azizul Achasial), Azalia Suhaimi, Melor Hidayah, Khairil Mokhzani, Julien Grandclement (ODBO), Ralph Abdullah, Faizal Heesyam (Pai), Amir Luqman (bless ur heart, thanks dear!), Amir Muhammad, Kiru Arul (from MalaysianToday), Ahmad Yusri (Photographer), Khairina Kamaruddin, Dayana Zaman, Christelle Decle, Chunwoei (Urbancr3atures), Mo Hafiz, Michelle Lee, Fatin Nadia (thank you so much!), Matthias Gelber (thanks for dropping by Matt, if free, i can join ur group for another green day), Ashwin Ash, Kamal Kemlima (thanks sweety!), Hazlynda Kushairi, Ellie Tetriati, Laz Shamsudin (thanks man), Marcus Mclernon (gr8 to hear from u), Rizwan Nordin (Seth Cohen), Sandeep Joseph (Thanks Sandeep, dhanyavad!)

Special Thanks to:

Iskandar Ibrahim (who moved me with his twitter: 'The story unfolds after 7 yrs. It is an honor to know you and especially being my friend @moedlatif Happy birthday brother. God bless.'), thank you so much. You've been a great listener and a good friend ^_^

To Ida Nerina, God bless you and I will never forget how great you had inspire me. I wish u a great speedy recovery. x0x0x

Joshua Davis. Thanks for your wonderful visit and wishes, coming from you means a lot. God bless u and ur loving family.

Bibi K Poh. Your love and tremendous support had been a great pillar of friendship. Thank you for sharing your beautiful inner thoughts that constantly inspire me

Work: Digital Malaya & Digital Nusantara

I manage to team up with wonderful people, from my sister to close friends. That's how Digital Nusantara was born. It wasn't a company that I wanted to form. It was relationship that I learn to understand even more, responsibilities and objective to achieve. I always nag about not having much resources, and as growing older, you intend to forget things, and sometimes you miss tracking of time and things around you, so that's why I have the best Personal Assistant. You know who you are and hopefully you may help me better and become a greater friend.

I had put others aside, like Digital Malaya Project (DMP). It has been so passive but frankly, it's forever in my that I cannot just simply give up on. There's always incoming opportunities and offers, and it's been such a bless that people believe in us, and keep supporting us. As I sit back, I just realize this thesis I had created had become a portal, then turn e-zine then turn into a collective. 2010 marks our 10th Anniversary. It's been so long. I'm overwhelmed by the contributors. I wish I was rich so I can pay them in form of cash, but they, my members had been so compromising and understanding.

So to Abby Latif, Mohammad Yazid, Prakash Daniel, Fariz Hanapiah, Soh Ee Venn, Sue Anna Joe, Nadirah Zakaria, Haslina Ghazali, Thank you! And to Arafath Ibrahim, Adi Arfan and Faiz Akhbar, welcome to the family. We hope with this platform, we are able to give you more opportunities, more exposure and wings to fly to a better platform to spearhead your personal brand.

I discovered a lot of talented new emerging designers and artists, so do follow digitalmalaya's twitter at http://www.twitter.com/digitalmalaya

Thank you for reading my long-ass post, well it's been 2-3 times a year, duh!

Salam and peace be upon you.

_
Still dancing the night away. only more structured and with grace.

Year End: 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:11:00 +0000

This year had been a blast! this is far most challenging year for me and this is where I put all my skills and experiences to the test. I thank each and everyone who had been following me without judgment, expectation and prejudice. I think some great people out there who had given me so much wonderful inputs and motivation to lift my spirits and to make me more self-conscious and humble.

All of my goals and targets achieved, and I praise Allah Al-Mighty for giving so much light into me. I am not saying I'm heading to that religious-i'm-holy-your-sinful-type-of-person because that's not who I am. I am just saying that keeping ourselves closer to God shape us in a better spirit and you will eventually become humble and feeling more contented, some may not accept the fact when people want to change for the better, and most agreed to hear if a person fall into darkness, they like people be in misery and despair. Some people are born to hate, i pity them.

I had done a lot of great works around, dealing with the best clients and worst, how I had contributed towards this creative economy and how to inspire others with the experiences I gain. Saya bukanlah golongan yang terdiri dari yang kedekut, thank God that I wasn't born that way. I like to help others so that I can learn something too.

If you like to go to my other blog which I focus more about the related-stories of creative awareness, kindly go to http://www.moedlatif.com/blog

Those who have facebook may add me at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Muid-Latif/57937932003?ref=mf and follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/moedlatif

Latest work 'Climbing Mount Chabang I'

Wishing a great Idul Adha, Happy Thanksgiving and Merry X-Mas to all my readers
_

Welcome 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:43:00 +0000

Dreams do come true, only those who had been working hard enough, most important, they live up in the existence of God and acknowledge every establishment around him. Most of us expect to be spoon-fed, worship and thought opportunity have to come as pleased. I felt so thankful to God and people that surround me, carry the patterns of my life to a wonderful journey.

Easy as it looks, it's never been. But through all the odds, when you do good things in life, God will help you through the darkest hours. Been bless with complicated family but truthfully kind and caring, friends who are there in need, a lover that shape me for a better person, and everyone, good, bad, whatever it counts, help and continuously make me stronger, a better person.

Last week had been a sober week, as Muslims in the world foresee the cruelty of the zionist, tearing the vulnerability of the Palestinian. Children and women being slaughtered, and on top of that, The American government had been rapidly supporting the Israel militans. God have mercy on those poor souls.

Pray is always a way to seek HIS help, but you can also do your part if you have a stable finance. MERCY welcome your donations:

Please make cheques payable to MERCY MALAYSIA.
CIMB account number: 1424-000-6561053.
For more information, please contact 03-2273 3999

(Thanks Kak Yasmin for this)

This post to be conclude in my new blog, at:
http://moedlatif.com/blog

;-). Ta!
_

Tatapan Dari Sanubari

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:16:00 +0000

Daku berkarya

Berbulan tak terkira badan dan mindaku ditempatkan di arena kerjaya yang cukup mencabar, dibanjiri satu demi satu masalah dan penyelesaian. Walaupun retak badan mengenangkan periuk nasi, yang penting nikmat diberi Ilahi memberikan seribu satu penghargaan dan kesyukuran.

Sumber rezeki terkini

Barangkali doa ibu bapa, adik beradik dan rakan-rakan mengutuhkan pancaroba kehidupan ini agar terus mencari rezeki, dan setakat ini, aku sendiri kagum dengan diriku atas kemampuan yang dapat dilakukan, dan ketabahanku direalisasikan berkat pengalaman dan hubungan dari industri kreatif.

Akhirnya, sebuah karya dari mata fikirku.

Karya terbaru untuk pameran KLue / UOX pada 13 Disember ini, di Sg. Wang Plaza, Kuala Lumpur.

Menjadi seorang pengkarya bukanlah sekelip mata, tanpa rancangan, penerokaan dan pengalaman serta bakat, kita nan membuahkan hasil yang memberikan sesuatu yang prestij. Sekilas bertutur bersama seorang ketua pensyarah di kolej seni kreatif terkenal di Bandar Sunway, beliau meluahkan rasa kagum atas kebolehanku mengagih bakat dalam pelbagai perkara dan menyampaikan sesuatu dengan baik untuk pelajar-pelajarnya. Mungkin kerana aku bukan bengis seperti pengarah-pengarah seni terkenal yang hanya ingin melindungi kelemahan diri mereka dengan berwatakkan kemegahan dengan banjiran pengiktirafan industry sebaliknya gagal memberikan ilmiah kepada masyarakat, turut mengutuk dan mencaci pereka muda dan artisan yang berdikari seperti saya. Jangan getar, selagi ada daya, aku akan terus berkarya dan terus memberikan anugerah yang diinspirasikan oleh Ilahi.

Fajar di Bukit Lagong, Sungai Buloh

Kami jurugambar-jurugambar Flickr Malaysia sekali lagi melapangkan masa kami dengan aktiviti terkini untuk merakamkan gambar dari tapak nurseri pesakit kusta di Sungai Buloh. Ia sebuah tempat yang memberikan seribu satu pengalaman yang membekalkan keindahan alam, dan penempatan masyarakat yang terperincil dan amat harmoni.

Julat Dinamik Tinggi (HDR) adalah antara konsep yang ingin dikecapi seterusnya mengunakan banyak kaedah suntingan gambar untuk memberikan lebih kualiti dan dinamik.

Dingin

Diri mencari sebuah jawapan mengenai cinta. Cinta itu suatu perasaan kompleks buat kamus kehidupan kerana aku seringkali dipupuk dengan perasaan negatif untuk membuka hatiku untuk melemahkan hatiku ini. Setiap sudut ingin mencari rasa yang dapat memenuhi kekosongan dan kesepian, namum tak selamanya bahagia kerana ragu-ragu yang hadir mengoyakkan ketulusan untuk bercinta.

Satu epilog yang indah tetapi kekekalan yang tak akan dikecapi. Aku akan sentiasa dihantui kekosongan, walaupun cinta lain diwarkahkan dari keluarga dan rakan tersayang.

Buatmu

Pedih, By Muid Latif

Pedih, satu perasaan ulung membara jiwa,
Melilit tangisan pilu membanjiri sanubari,
Tertanya kesangsian yang meretakkan harapan,
Kerna kesilapan aku kecilkan duniaku sepi.

Cinta senang dihembus kata,
Entah mana pula perasaan terkira,
Disudut ini goyang pemikiran,
Pendirianku dulu kukuh kian pudar.

Hadirmu dimana?
Pelukmu dimana?
Mata mindaku kepadamu mana?
Hilang perasaanku dimana?

Pengorbananku memberi seribu keikhlasan,
Saat ku memerlukanmu mengiringi kehampaan,
Kau getarkan keraguanmu dengan ungkitanku,
Sering salah tingkah lakuku dimatamu.

Kini ku mengulangi kesilapanku,
Kerana impianku yang diidamkan musnah,
Lalu aku pergi membawa diri,
Hanya kekosongan duka mengiringi destinasiku.

_
Ditulis tulus dari sanubari yang rendah dan terkilas, lara mencari kegelapan.

After The Rain, The Sun Shine Again

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:57:00 +0000

Being Confident, Not Cocky, Facing Black Magic & Jealousy

This is how people fail to control their destiny of becoming someone, lost control over them, fulfill by jealousy, greed and desire to be their own God and forget that there’s a ticket in hell waiting for them. Stop and enoughlah all your dirty witch-crafting, hurting or 'kill' others because your life will end such misery, period. Remember, what goes around, comes around. Allah Maha Kuasa. You may do and sabotag bad things to people and you can get away with it, but people who are close to you that you ought to love will suffer do to your own doings.

Those who resent and irritated by my versatile ability and capability to be more than just a designer, it is how I had achieved in what I do, that put them in such competitive stage where they could not afford to handle. Their lost mind and heart could not bear to understand the reason why I stand for what I believe, to not just to support, but to bring changes so more people can become better than me, which I believe it is good, for a greater cause. I don’t even begin to understand some would personally attack me because their reservations over the things I do, that they fail to achieve like I do. Some of my recent enemies, who I help to shape their careers before, turn cold towards me. And they have the balls to say such discouraging things about me when they didn’t realize who got them the job and opportunity in the first place. Every time I bumped into them, I just couldn’t bare to see how disgraceful they are.

Question: how many still carry themselves as designer? Most of them move on to become a photographer without achieving their previous field. Some came easily by just doing cheap talk, paperwork but never ever execute and practise in the first place. I know they had move to another direction because they never put passion and heart in the first place, and frankly speaking, they fail at executing to the fullest to extend their own even skills because they fear their failure when they already fail at it.

In my case, a person would nag about my CV in Twitter without knowing me in person and only hear judgement and stories from those who threaten by my achievement, even sometimes a person spent such time to modify my Wikipedia page by putting ‘weird’ information in it, and at the end of the day, they have to face the fact they can’t get over me, because I'm important to their daily routine, and they could not move on in a positive state of mind. It’s a pure oxymoron that their employers paid them to stalk over my blog, websites and Wikipedia page to get frequent updated about my life. Even one individual got so envious over my 'small' toy collection.

Wow! I didn’t realize they 'worship' me too much, not to mention, they actually work for me by checking on me on regular routine! Cool huh? I don't even bother nak check on them, it's hilarious.

So to those who annoyed, irritate by me and my guts, don’t get to excited when I fall, because eventually I will come back with style more than you can imagine.

'Hikmah di Sebaliknya'

This is the reason that you need to have faith in God, because He put you up through so many obstacles in life. I remember after my prayers, I ask so that I can be strong to face challenges. Some that I fail, yet some I manage to see. Rezeki datang melimpah-limpah, berkat Yang Mulia, berkat kesabaran dan ketabahan kita. A big thank each day possible to God for giving this opportunity. I have no idea how good to be able to trust your destiny, the path that you choose and because in the closest existence, God truly loves you. It does not matter if you’re not Muslim, if you love Jesus or if you pray for Vishnu, religion is a must, because it makes you feel you existed for a reason, and for those who don’t have any religion, I gratefully felt sad for their lost to not be able to look into what is life.

To share, last week (16th October) after meeting up with my former employer who even gave me a present in a form of book entitle ‘Don’t Be Sad’, written by Aaidh ibn Abdullah al-Qami, made me in silent tears because the hard times that I have gone through.

After an incident that happen while I was driving back to Selayang from Cyberjaya, my car shifted on the other side of joint, drifted for four rounds on a highway. Imagine if there are cars coming all over in such heavy rain, I would not be writing here today. I came back in one piece. The power of faith is just enormously strong for me to know that God and Angels is always by your side, because He loves you so much after the challenge He had put your through, and for you to take on the challenge in such drastic positive measure.

So always remember, if you do the right things, God will give you the ray of light so that you can understand and start thankful each day. And I’m blessed with that. Alhamdulillah.

Being Stronger

The strength of my survival is because I’ve been blessed by God, literary, because I start to open up my heart, after being such a wild trash. I cannot do it with big help of family and frienda. Now that I have someone very important in my life, I continue to survive from learning how to stand on my feet again without help from the familiar faces. I struggled, learn and to cherish each moment I have. I see different perspective, the things I never care to bother all these years, and being in such wealth I forgot about what is a price tag and just buy and carry without thinking. Partly, I start to realize how much time and money I wasted, but I know that it’s not a thing or issue I should be regret, but instead looking on step ahead so that the next time I can do better.

Facebook has been the greatest therapy for me after getting my former religious advices from my Ustaz. I let things out completely, and then I start to realize how much love I received from countless of beautiful people who really take care and concern about the things I do, at my downfall. These beautiful supportive people had inspired me to learn more about life than just being on the top, but to try different shoe, in a different walks of life.

So my friends who read this, I love you dearly and thanks for being the light and guide and let me overcome my negativity.

How you present yourself

Being up and down, definitely more than just emotional roller coaster, three months had passed since I left my workplace in Cyberjaya, nevertheless would I think the sign of ‘SALADIN’ would forever stamp on my forehead, leaving a permanent mark wherever I go. Imagine strangers stop me by at Megamall of Midvalley asking about Saladin. I just realized I left Saladin team for almost two years.

The Good Things to come

Daily pressure, insomnia and sleepless mind exhausted with proposal, quotations and meetings, it had surely paid of after quite awhile. I’m currently working close with Malaysia AIDS Council to handle two projects, one is a graffiti illustration for upcoming World AIDS Day and another one is strictly confidential. Last weekend, I just contribute my effort to help the artist's backdrop for World Peace Festival 2008 in Stadium Bukit Jalil. Thanks to Kamal Sabran for inviting me to join the fellow talented visual artists.

Recently awarded by a contractor to engage interactive kiosk development for a national government body, I had drooling over the research and content of Malaysia History and origin. It’s probably one of the best masterpiece I am currently working with and a product to be proud of, dealing with the same team that delivered the Angkasawan Programme Interactive Kiosk. With few lines of incoming website development from various agencies, I even have the opportunity to work with upcoming recording artist to design their artwork album covers and one of my rare opportunity, to pitch a project for a well-known figure from Hollywood. Even if I won't be able to work with him, I just know that out there, someone truly appreciate what I do and the talent I have, it's awesome. Alhamdulillah.

My latest illustration 'Suraya' was also featured in KLue's October Issue of Pulse. Thanks Ai Leen for the small feature!

Next year, it would be a more hectic yet positive year for me, as I will be handling Kuala Lumpur Design Week together with strong team that brought you the previous Massive Territory Conference and MIDI Conference that feature international speakers like Karim Rashid, Joshua Davis and Niko Stumpo. It’s never a year for me to relax, but double the amount of work I did, and to create more ability in project and event management.

And I still proud of telling that I’m just a designer :-)

Ta!

The Eid Mubarak Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:04:00 +0000

Apparently this is face after getting a bad food poisonin' (a day before) this meet-up at Devi's Corner, Bangsar on the 7th of September. Photo by Halimi Saidi.

Despite of being drowsy yet creative and 'freelancing', I managed to catch up on some design books, read some articles about Malay history, watch latest Naruto & Bleach from Dattebayo, 'Fear Itself' and upcoming 'True Blood' starring Anna Paquin, and manage to watch two hillarious movies 'Love Guru' & 'Meet The Zohan'. I got all the love and support from my family and beloved friends so I was very composed the entire one month and a half though I thought I just woke up from a terrible nightmare, seriously.

A part from that, I had a great time this month, even manage to berbuka puasa with my dearest Gjie Aziz, Fynaz, Lin, Suzie, Prakash, Jolene, Abby, Eddie, Melissa Saila and her mum, the legendary actress Mariani (imagine meeting Julie Andrews ;-). The next week, I had my yumcha session with another dearest friends, Oya and Halimi. We actually end up discussing politics and 'sensasi selebriti!'.

Had a great photo shoot with the theme 'Men & Baju Melayu' by Mr. Crewcut again, this time I felt more easy working with Mr. K. I can't wait for the final result. Eventually I met another model that night, Hamdi. Very funny guy.

Was also invited to Jay Lim's pre-launch of Miss Hua Exhibition last weekend and I will be going to Penang to give a talk in Han Chiang College, Penang from 18-20 and will be staying over at Nony's place in Ayer Hitam. Hope the weather is good for photography. Can't wait!

What's Cookin?

I guess my forte for cooking is always the beautiful green vege's. I love vege but I ain't vegetarian though. Recipe is below. Anyway, I got so freaked out after the food poison so I'm eating more fresh green. My next menu will be fresh cabbages, kelp noodle with dried tofu and carrots. Yum!

Let's cook Muid's style:

Step 1:
Prepare yourself a big frying pan or kuali. Letak satu piring teh (50-100ml) of olive oil or cooking oil, prepare half tea spoon of salt, slices of Garlic and Onion. Heat em up, wait for few minutes till the oil boils, then masuk one bit by one bit.

Step 2:
Put some baby Shrimp or Slices of chicken meat, stir it all together, but make sure you don't overcook.

Step 3:
Cherry Tomato, Long Peas (yang sudah dihiris), Mushroom, Baby Corn & Broccoli, mix and toss em up, and voila! Jangan lupa ambil gambar pakai lens 50mm :P

My mum says add some corn flour to make it moisty or soy sauce (kicap), it's an option only lah, so I don't like to put those option sebab nanti tahan lama.

Neu Photography

Merdeka-ria: When it comes to our local independence day, I always wanted to utilized the best time to go out rather than just sit at home because I want to make it as memorialize as I can. Well, so far, all of my Merdeka celebration had been so memorable that I still could not forget how me and my sister Abby almost got drowned at Santubong Beach, Sarawak in 1993 because we went out chasing those Mudskipper until we realized we swam too far. *sigh* (*keluhan*)

The photos above was taken at the Bukit Setapak area on our way to our sister's place where she lives very close to Anwar Ibrahim's residence. Since that day, we know The Annexe of Central Market had Arts For Grabs, I really wanted to go there but I end up at KLCC instead, having tea with my family at Little Penang Cafe after the whole family went to watch Susuk with my sister's family.

Shafina sent us an sms earlier to hang out at a place called Pink Sage. Me and my sister went there after we went to my sister's place (Aniq). Pink Sage has great menu of yummilicious food, drink and cakes. We had our breakfast set with pancakes.

After sending back our parents to the carpark, me and Abby went to see Gjie & Fynaz at Great Eastern Mall, Ampang and we hang out at O'Brian sandwich. Had a good Merdeka outing.

World Photo Walk: Selected Shots

As usual, any other weekend is the best time to make use of my camera. KLickr once again made photowalk a worthwhile. We had our early warm up before the real photo walk starts. With us is Asha, Kamarul (my UiTM college mate), Abby, Effa, Nagen, Syiqin, Shafina, Ripi and me.

Nagen looking bluish Jedi on a rainy day

The reversed Mr. Cricket

The pathway of survival

We had an earlier meet-up Flickr group had a great success with our 29th monthly meetup, dated 23 August 2008 with great photography walk at Kampung Baru, Kuala Lumpur, thanks to all who made it. I had such a great time and meet great new friends. I was also model for that day (perasan).

Photos by Prakash Daniel (DMP Collective)

The day after, we (me, Abby, Prakash, Jolene, Shafina, Nagen & Ripi) went to Yuritei Japanese restaurant near KLPac, Sentul, to celebrate our dearest friend, Syiqin who came all the way from Penang. Since I was financialy 'ill' , I found a great alternative, praise the Al-Mighty God for inspiring me with this left hand with talent. I manage to give Syiqin a great gift for her, in a form of sketches. Alhamdulillah.

This is Syiqin :-)

This is Syiqin, illustrated, framed in nice IKEA white frame.

Aperture Workshop with Jen Siow:

Model: Linda

Aperture 2 is one of my favorite Photo editing software in Mac. Aperture is affortable compare to Adobe Lightroom, however, I always love to use both application to suit my photos. Tai of EcazStudio invited me to come to this workshop organized by Click! & GoLive at Uptown, Damansara Utama. I paid RM150 for this class and all participant received free iPod Shuffle (1GB). Let see, education and tips by renown and noted legend, Jen Siow, free food, good friends around (Halimi, Musri, Tze Meng, TK, Jinny Wong), free model shooting spree and free iPod, it's way more worth than spending on a Nike shoe (whoops!).

I didn't expect we had a shooting session as I thought it was just a sit-and-hear kinda seminar. The organizer brought us with two cute models at TTDI park and I must say, I manage to get some good shot and explore more of what I can do with photography. Having said that, I still love towards my passion in illustration and design. Ta-da to dat! ;-)

Outro:
Meantime updating my creative portfolio and CV, I would like to wish all my Muslim friends a happy Eid Mubarak!

_
dancing with my teddiebear with affection

I'm Not Myself

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:45:00 +0000

‘I’m not myself’ describe me for not be able to:

Work my magic on creativity, which means more design and artworks (two artwork is not good enough at the age of three decade).
I failed to submit my work (CI) which I suppose to deliver like 3 weeks ago and still slowly working on it due to lack of experience. Means more hardwork!
Being caught up with different ‘interest’ of industry (Hint: NGO, UNICEF)
Too overwhelmed and concerned by the keyword ‘new media’
Was not able to reply email on time due to misplace of brain cells (brain needs defragmentation)
Was not able to scan my sketches that I did in 2 weeks, two of ‘em on plane to Singapore.

I’m not myself lately. I lost those words that give me the motivation to be at a place where I am able to stand tall. I was completely transparent somehow. No, this is not another post to gain sympathy or try to sound as if I’m pathetic. Having said that, there are two Malaysian Kancil Award designer @ recipients who are currently been talking about me and very ‘irritated’ by me due to my personal note from my Facebook. Kadang-kala these jantan perangai cam Pariz Hilton kutuk lahanat mulut kalah perempuan. Anyway, it's okay, it's a privilege for people like them to use that reputation who definitely have the right to 'kutuk small-small' underdog designer like me. It’s good to know there’s people like this, because it makes me want to boost my creative and become hardworking even more.

I learned too much only these three weeks. I read more book than I used to. I met people who are really serious about helping the industry grow and at the opposite side, I also meet people who want to save mother nature and let others know the negative impact of global warming. I felt with so much guilt because I had to throw away those cigarettes, but in the same time, I just need to smoke my lungs off.

Today (4th of August), I was even frustrated because I was not able to carry by readings in my Qiraati class with my Ustaz. I can see how frustrated he was with me for not be able to read fluently. Lepas solat Asar nak praktis balik.

I was out jogging for few minutes before Mahgrib. As usual with my jogging sneakers (yang sedap) and iPod to keep me going little bit bouncin' with Madlib 'in the air'. Just on my way back after ‘tawaf' (a round in the housing area and park, reaching up 7.30 PM), I came across something extra-ordinary. It was so beautiful yet astonishing.. (it's so National Geographic). I stand for few minutes, gasping and starring at the sky. At first I thought it was just flock of birds trying to get back to their nests but it was otherwise.

There was thousands of termite swarmer (kekatu) on the air, and with them, are countless flock of birds from sparrows, Swift (mostly from the passerine species), crows and surprisingly, bats! Now this is no Dark Night ya’all. This is real one yang ‘comel lotey’ (cute). I was so excited to see how these flying beings feed themselves somehow stand unite despite different species and groups. I guess every living things have balance and harmony.

Learning the big deal of Corporate Identity Guidelines.

I was 'terrified' with the whole thing. I was given an assignment to come up with CI for my previous company to work on New Media CI guidelines because when I got my hands of others example of CI, it seems like the one I’m working with doesn’t gel with anything. It doesn’t relate to anything, because the last two weeks, I’m seeing ignorance in each department, neglecting what is CI and brand guide, thus showing more of personal execution among them (there were to much inconsistency), which I found very disturbing. I don’t know how people can adapt branding and guidelines and ignore the importance of it. Brand guide is set to give a better apprentice, but I guess people are very anti-visual. I don't know why we are going so way back to RTM.

One of industrial professional come to me and told me: “Muid, do you know to do a Corporate Identity, most company charge at RM25,000?” I couldn’t figure out more. Now I have to look at my communication brief what is required (if I got one).

Now, I have three upcoming talks (from USM, to UiTM Perak and 'A Journey to Nanyang: Dance with the Flowers' exhibition in Penang), meantime preparing for upcoming Kuala Lumpur Design Week (KLDW) :) Join our group in facebook to keep yourself updated with KLDW.

Here's my collaboration with the talented Mr. Fariz Hanapiah (my part is on the illustration) for Astro's GAIA drama series (Season 2) directed by Nizam Zakaria.

(If you can see this, click here to view the video). The compression of Vimeo is way to great compared to youtube.com.

(I’m)Possible

There’s a possibility that I will be ‘closing’ this blog as I want my web audience to focus on my work. I will transfer most of my personal post in facebook notes (by invitation only!) as I’m working on my portfolio revamp to keep the consistency of my website flawless and RSS ‘feed-able’. So this blog will be on archive, and most industrial topic and related creative venture will be posted in Digital Malaya instead.

New Media Policy & Practice Mini Summit in Conjunction of International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA2008)

I was invited last two weeks ago (23-27 July) to attend this wonderful event (with workshop). Besides that, I manage to present my work at Pecha Kucha @ TheaterWorks, Singapore. It has definitely open up my mind to another perspective about Malaysia’s industry especially in New Media Education. Thanks to Asia-Europe Foundation for the great hostility for providing me the accommodation, transportation, ‘makan-makan’ and continuous support not forgetting new friendship and alliance especially to meet people like Rob van Kranenburg, Katelijn (so adorable), Adam Somlai-Fisher (amazing Flash/ActionScript writer/Designer), Floor Van Spaendonck (Facebook buddies), Atteqa, Sally Jane Norman and others. I gain more knowledge sharing and information of today’s modern practice of New Media, and of course, to find out what exactly is the Helsinki Agenda. There's just too much things to learn, and I wish a lot of my fellow Malaysian designer can join me here :(

Sally's sister, me & Floor

Me & Adam

More interesting moment to add; I met (again), my buddy Roopesh even we had great discussion together with Prayas Abjinav for late night snack in my hotel room. Roopesh had also given me a tour for his 'Relocation' exhibition in Singapore Management University (SMU), features work of Hasnul J. Saidon (till now I never meet this lad). I will write about full details of what I’ve learn in Digital Malaya article soon, insya’Allah.

Singapore, a place for food and vacation, not for work:

My favorite coffee house in Singapore, TCC and this is the super-delicious Cream of Fennel with Smoke Salmon Soup. Yummy!

Lovin the J.Co donuts. How come they don't have it here in Malaysia?

Having said that, I miss the lovely chicken rice at Chee Meng at Jalan Bukit Bintang opposite Low Yatt!

Yogyakarta / Jogjakarta Media Arts Festival

Apparently I had been given a slot to present my new media work and study case in the ongoing Cellbuttons #2 at the Yogyakarta Media Arts Festival where I will be going around 18-20 August (Insya’Allah). I still couldn't figure out why some called Yogya and some called Jogja. I'm going to make a short vacation by visiting the beautiful temples because I was delighted by Kieran's photoworks during his trip few weeks ago with his buddies.

Atilia’s Ranjau Launch & Sunrise Jazz Festival

Me, Kieran, Atilia & Becky @ Bangkok Jazz

Thanks Fizar for giving this opportunity to promote Digital Malaya Project at the launch of Atilia’s MTV ‘Ranjau’. The event had been a great success with the great support of everyone and I’m very thankful to be a part of it. I also would like to congrats my friend, Noryn Aziz and his lovable dear manager, Abg Sam Kassim, for bringing glorious victory and made Malaysia proud. Let’s have another seafood dinner guys!

The Incredible Elvira & Hunny Madu.

my pal, Dennis Lau

I was there last week (2nd August) to support my friend Hunny Madu and Phunk Mob (too awesome!), but I was so amazed that the local talented singer call Elvira who had actually sang one of my most favorite number by Mary J. Blige, ‘The Love I Never Had’.

Ashraf

Abby & Prakash

Prakash, MC, MC's friend, Mika (Sona) & Abby

Eventually, everything went to what I expected, relaxed but balancing work and play.
_

A Halt for Workaholic Life of ...

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:44:00 +0000

There's a two month frame for me. I'm leaving a remarkable job that earn me not an award that I can proud off, BUT acknowledgment of my capacity as a creative person who had contributed in many fields to enrich and 'empowered' people on how they see and experience new media especially in the Government sector/industry. I'm leaving a job that made me earn more than RM84, 000k per year. Some might say I'm insane, some are excited to see me back in the scene, but what's in it for me? I have been working non stop ever since I work on WCIT & IAP. In fact, there had been to much of paperworks for me, spent to much time reading and replying emails and spent hours of meetings. I'd longed for a break. That's all I can say. I left my creative work too long and I need to re-charge so I can continuously become creative and inspire to others.

I'm quite happy. It actually took me three (3) months before I made up my mind. I felt that now I need to fully utilize before I start back working as a freelancer and move on to a solid place that can offer me permanent position even how low it can be. I believe it won’t bother me as long as if fits the bill ;-). There are always times your ‘saham’ can fall or raise, of course I don’t want to choose a workplace that is far away from me, ever again! Since the hike of petrol is insane, besides spending up to RM1,200 per month on travel expense, I could not imagine seeing my life in ‘danger’ of driving back and forth from Selayang to Cyberjaya, not forgetting no company insurance covered and no travel allowance, no EPF, disapprove house bank loans and definitely no bonus :-).

Last Friday, dated 20th June was my official day that I discuss with my H.O.D for Branding & Communication and I will be leaving that nice sanctuary by end of July to pursue my creative journey once again. I bumped into my PM, Kamal from Saladin in the H.Q foyer and he said something really made me so 'f**ked-up'. He invited me for a farewell on my last day, can you believe that? I actually felt to that very moment like crying (damn!), but I told him no to do farewell to me. I just thought and always felt Saladin team was a family to me, except for that 'Mr. Yo! Bro, collabro' (buat dunno je bila berselisih). I'm gonna miss everyone so much especially my ex-collegue's from CMD and Saladin (Especially my greatest boss I had worked with, Hasnul Hadi) You can never ever find a boss who is so creative and give you Keroro figure set for your birthday :-). I'm actually going to miss the fish pond in MDeC because every month, I feed the fish with biscuts and bread I bought for them.

Now, I really have to put this in my blog because after my discussion with my buddy, Roul, he just said something deep and so fresh because I felt a bit down and vulnerable for a while after discovered someone leaving me a bad impression.

'qualifications doesn't justifies.. and not an authorization for you to undermine people's achievement..' and 'regretting your decisions is an act of denying your intelligence...'

Thanks Roul. Normally I gave you advices in your career and life, but today, you help me out. :)

That Enlighten Moment

Disclaimer: this post is not to show people that I'm a religious person, but this post is to tell you that wherever you are, whatever you do, God loves you. God never left you behind, it is you who left God behind. At times (and all the time), you need to pray and remember God, and for that you know the purpose of your life and what you would like to achieve.

Recently, my mind got so hair wired. Along with my huge friends and family, I felt the necessary to felt sorrow. I was mad, sad, angry, and unable to forgive myself for what I've done. I called my heart for few prayers and doa. It's been awhile I never touched my tasbih. It was always the huya-huya party, and I left my purity behind. Sesungguhnya Allah Maha Kuasa. I felt that special night made me calmed. I always know that prayers made me neutralized again, back to my senses, and I felt more relaxed. Azam saya nak start balik baca Muqaddam (actually dah start mengaji) and al-Quran and insya'Allah I try my best to fulfill my azam during my breaks. I always have this thoughts but my will wasn't that strong. Now I break it and felt in a new level. I know by doing this, I benefit a lot of things that can make me become more 'stable' and humble.

I actually felt shukor (thankful) because I can still manage to balance my life well. There are few said that I'm just being 'kiasu' but that's not the case. I believe in my confidence and sometimes it is necessary you mention what are the good doings that you did (bukan sekadar nak tutup dosa or to cover up your sins) BUT to let others know what you do, so that in some way it will inspire others. There are others out there who like to assume things about you, even accuse for false information on you just to bring your self-esteem down. You do good things in your life, Insya'Allah, rezeki akan Tuhan berikan. Buat masa ni Alhamdulillah, sebab Muid tak pernah aniayai orang atau tutup periuk nasi orang. I know few who did talk bad things about me have a very miserable life. They can never find their peace. Either they are doing not very well in their life or in their career. Whatever the case, I felt sorry for them. God is great so I promise myself not to be like them :-) and keep on doing the right and good things in life.

p/s: Did I tell you guys my ustad is very garang. Got rotan summore.. if I salah pronounce my word, dia ketuk meja. Sure kena rotan if I'm a kid :P. which also reminds me to finish of reading 'I Am Muslim' by our dear Dina Zaman.

Hey Moe, long time no click!

Here are my latest HDR's processing. Those photo walk with me fellow photographers really kicking back my Adobe™ Photoshop skills once again. Kudos to Shaf, Abby, Ripi, Prakash, Vic, Nagen, Syiqin, Rafiq, Suzie and Nell for being my photo buddies.

Neu designs werks?

Managed to produce few artwork last month and this month. It feels good to do artwork. I'm currently studying the history of Hang Li Po and studying another sea life 'Nautilus'.

Urbanscapes 2008

As Digital Malaya Project reborn in a new website (finally!), we manage to kick off with a new exhibition with KLue, for Urbanscapes 2008. The show was a huge success attended by 6,000 Malaysians and tourists.

Photos by Mizie @ Flickr.

Me, best friend back in UiTM, Nadiah, and sister Abby. Photos by Eka.

I also had a nice chat with my old friends, including the one I keep in touch regularly, Nadiah! (Nad, considered regular la kan? :P). Eka & Nad, thanks to both of you guys for coming that day :). Yes, I owe you delicious pasta... Picolomondo?

My dearest Atilia (Malaysia Jazz Princes), Prakash (Orange), me & Damien (Urbanscapes Artist). Photos by Halimi Saidi.

We would like to thank the Urbanscapes team, everyone who came to our gallery including Atilia. Although she just finish her performance that night, she still came and drop by our place. Thanks Tia, te quiero mucho! and of course, our official printer partner, EcazStudios for printing our photos for the exhibition. Tai & Halimi, you guys rawk!

Will There Ever Be A Better Place?

As a citizen of Malaysia, here's what I think of what is going on today, the reality of Malaysia. When some politicians want to hold on to power, they do actions that affect us all. Few days ago, I read a headline in the newspapers that says; 'PM ensures safety for Rakyat'. I beg to differ.

A lot of things is going on, I mean a lot. Serious crime is rising up. More illegal works come to Malaysia, some threatened and snatch those who took public transportation, in this case both me and my sister had confronted these sick bastard.

I came across road bullies who desperately seek for fights among other race. Women drivers are getting more furious and rude on the road. Toleration has gone almost 0%. I get 'racial look' each week from different car drivers and in public places. It's that obvious. When I was involved in Malaysian Artistes for Unity, what I'm currently experiencing is the other way around. I try to create unity and love among with others. Some said don't give them faces, but that's never a good solution. Most of the time I tolerate to people around me. Even when people are lining up, I give them way. Is that nobility or stupidity? :)

A friend of mine just got snatched on an escalator IN Pavillion mall, Kuala Lumpur. She lost her money and her parking ticket. It's even sad that the security and management didn't want to take responsible furthermore ask my friend to pay for the ticket for replacement due to f*cking policy.

Another friend of mine from Penang told me a lady was filling her petrol in a petrol station and during filling up the tank, when someone (thief) got in her car and hide inside. It was the petrol attendant who saw it and asks the lady to get in the counter so she will be safe. Tips: Always lock your car at the petrol station.

If you remember few weeks back, the rude 'mat rempit' (motorcyclist) attacked four ladies in a petrol station in Bangsar and some of them got injured.

People are kidnapping children to sell kids outside the country. Drug addicts sell their new born baby for few Ringgits to get new crack. Life is that cheap.

More rape cases increase each day.

Some teachers (especially in Bukit Idaman High School) is insulting and discriminating their students. I met rude prejudice teachers and they are injecting politics to their students education because they have no other scapegoats or other place to satisfy their anger towards their career and their life. Even among teachers, a lot a playing dirty just to gain more power and positions. Well, from my experience, not only teachers, but lecturers are spoiling their students, and of course, the men vs. women students where student with a the big 'V' gets more A+ from lecturers than the hardworking boys like us.

Sanctuary is no longer a sanctuary. Surau and mosque become a 'hot' place for larcenist to steal audio system (mic, speakers, cables, etc). This is a place where we thought AMIN was said out loud when we perform our prayers but soon after solat, no body cares to shake hands and greet Salam to each other. It's very frustrating.

Rakyat fear by the police? Yes, SOME of them are the certified mobs. I know there are some who are nice but most of them are pure samseng. I remember that I saw group of traffic police man sit in a mamak warung with a very hostile attitude, ask for this and that from the servant. What a poor guy. Surprisingly that man in uniform didn't even pay for what they eat and drink. They just took off. By far, I met 3 cops who's asking for bribe. My mom who also works with Bukit Aman (Police) told me to be extra careful with them. If someone from police department advise you to be extra careful with police man, which means we are seeing more corruption among them.

Last but not least, 'get rid of the consultants! they are wasting our company's money'. As I witness and heard over a meeting last friday, 4th of July in a company here in Cyberjaya. This is how people 'kill' of people who want to make a life for their living. Such a cruel villain mindset of today's Malays. Congratulations! wow.. I'm actually impressed with so called 'modern' and open-minded people. :-)

I encourage and advice people to be smart, level-headed, don't be mad all the time, try to be patience, be nice to people, appreciate things around you, do some charity, do some donation (jangan kemut duit, if you can pay for a RM300 dress, why can't put more than a dollar in a tabung surau :).

Outro: Back At One

Tonight (8th of July), I was fooling around in front of the mirror and in my room, slowly twisting my lap and waist with Suzanne Vega's Caramel. That song really get me all mysteriously groove. Such a beautiful greatly written song (love how they use it for CLOSER trailer). It's about how you longed for that person, but you can't get that person, so you have to let it go. Let... it.. go... yeah, i know so.

"Caramel"

It won't do
to dream of caramel,
to think of cinnamon
and long for you.

It won't do
to stir a deep desire,
to fan a hidden fire
that can never burn true.

I know your name,
I know your skin,
I know the way
these things begin;

But I don't know
how I would live with myself,
what I'd forgive of myself
if you don't go.

So goodbye,
sweet appetite,
no single bite
could satisfy...

I know your name,
I know your skin,
I know the way
these things begin;

But I don't know
what I would give of myself,
how I would live with myself
if you don't go.

It won't do
to dream of caramel,
to think of cinnamon
and long
for you.

_

Bicara Kehidupan Seorang Pereka dan Artis Digital

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:41:00 +0000

P. Ramlee The Musical, A Must See!

I was moved and touched by the phenomenal performance proudly by Malaysians. Most important, it's about the legendary multi talented the late, Tan Sri P. Ramlee!

Board Members of Creative Commons Malaysia (Wan Peng, Muid, Hasnul Hadi) with Hasnul's dearly wife, Kak Riza.

I have to take a bow to amazing actress that I admire and known in person, they are my dear friend Atilia, Liza Hanim and Melissa Saila. Gosh, they are in control of the stage, and I hope Kak Tiara will have it more in the coming future. From my point of view, These beautiful ladies sing their hearts out and unbelievably impressive with their character.

Worth of sms voting during those Audition days. Chedd with my sister Abby.

I'm thrilled to meet Pat. He's supercool!

Chedd had great choreography moves and did a great role while Pat Ibrahim really did an amazing, wonderful job on choreography. It's really hard work, and it's a success! Kudos to all!

The interactive visual accompanied at the end made me in tears to have such amazing person on earth, the late Tan Sri P. Ramlee. That show had really put a moved on my heart. A remarkable show I will never forget.

al-Fatiha to our beloved.

The Saturday Workout

I had spent my day on Saturday 14th by cleaning up my room, mopping the floor and went out with Abby to get a card for our father's day. I manage to buy dinner for the whole family. But before that night. I went jogging with my pet brother at this park after Batu Caves heading to Kepong called Kepong Metropolitan Park. What so special about this park, is the only place you can see families with their kids playing kites on the sky.

It was a big spin for me to go for a jog with Kamal and I tell you, it's really good because your muscle starts to ache. He asked sarcastically 'so you really wanna go for 3 more rounds'?. It was a great excercise. On my last jog on the track we started, I stop and look up in the sky. There it was, as the kites freezed in the air. I was just silent breeze passing through me, and it made me feel so light and felt such purify. I'm doing this jogging session again, and probably bring my SLR with me. It's a great place to do photography.

The Call of Nature

The 10th till 11th of May marked a special date for me and my friends to an amazing, breast-taking (I mean breath-taking) journey of the wonderful Berkelah Waterfall on the way to Kuantan, Pahang. It's been awhile since my scout days in Ipoh, Perak. I always love camping. I remember my last camping was with my schoolmate from SM Kepong when we went to this hutan nearby Rawang. It was so freaky that there is one night the Ustad who followed us asked us to walk to our camp faster because we we're followed by an object flying from top of trees.

Photos by K:Rew. Thanks!

So back to Berkelah, I had the best time in my life with my friend, Mr. K:Rew, Rajan, Syed, Two Army Officer and one Police officer. It was so awesome and I actually felt small disappointed with myself that I didn't bring my SLR camera along. We had our 2 days and one night camping. Believe me, this is one experience you never forget! The cool, fresh waterfall was so tranquil and so purifying. I thought we had at least swim 5 times a day. We had great food with us, and such great company. The only thing that was missing is our Internet and laptops! haha.. it's the only time I don't have to think about emails, Facebook or reading news. I do get calls from clients and friend, and I told them I'm in a jungle! Even my sister and her friends didn't know where exactly I was.

Something that trip happen which inspired me is the teamwork. There was so much teamwork with this group. For the first time, I never get mad at things. There was no temper or whatsoever. The environment really helps me to find my peace. It was a great deal for me, and it's all thanks to Rajan and K:Rew for making this happen.

That Mentality: The After Trip

Me and Rajan had an unusual 'incident' on our way back to KL. We eventually had our break in the warung that we parked our cars. Now, there is this one shop with less customer that actually sells quite tasteful food and the other shop, with countless of clients. There rest went there while me and Rajan went to the other one instead. First of all, the customer service was unbelievably terrible. It explains that (no wonder!) people come visit the restaurant. The attitude of the daughter of the shop owner was terribly rude that can actually set someone's thermometer. There was no ‘Selamat datang’ (welcome), all she said with a high tone was 'Nasi?!', 'Nak Air Apa?'.

I still remember when I asked, how come you don't sell cigarettes in here, she told us there was no capital and the cost is too much to bear. That also happens to mobile top-ups. I can't believe such mentality exist, and it's no wonder how these particular typical Malays people never get their business to success because they never dare to take risks, not event to take challenge in order to move forward.

Let's take 'Mamak' restaurant in KL for example. They're probably the best food brand in Malaysia because they learn what the customer think, what the customer wants. You can now experience entertainment such as watching football (yes Manchester here) on a flat panel LCD TV, projections, there's even info-kiosk to slot in advertisements and even the place is supported by WI-FI (Internet access). Their strategy is amazing that should be example by others. But still, it's too much of a hassle to these typical people right? Sigh...

What Malaysians don't really bother and always pin-point at people

All blogs are talking about petrol price. What that does not change is the mentality of Malaysians. We kept on whining about how expensive the price of petrol is when we don't actually study back how awful we spent our money on OTHER things.

Here are some of the things that we need to look at: (problems that will never solve)

Alcohol. They don't mind paying a jug of beer that cost RM60. They wasted at least RM300 per night. They waste their time not only money, but energy and then throw-up. Right? :-)

Go figure to yammseeeenggg!
mabuk drive kereta like samseng,
Press minyak rugi duit langgar bentenggg....
kereta jahanam kena saman baru nak melentennngg..
Mobile phones. I don't understand these people especially parents who bought handphones for their kids. They could afford to buy expensive hand phone even I myself find it very expensive. They spent until thousands of Ringgit just to show off to people about it. Maybe some bought because of functionality, but most of them I met are just about fashion rather functionality.
Mobile top-ups & bills. People can actually spent RM100 just per week! they like to talk long hours and I believe it's not good to 'gayut' for hours. Another one would be the SMS subscription of Astro Horoscope lah, Teman Setia lah, 'Saya Sunyi Kesepian' and whatsoever.
Cigarettes. This is a case where people, especially Malaysian will continue to buy no matter how much the price has hike. A box is cigi is RM8.20. Come on, you are talking about smoking a box a day. Let's do the math, RM8.20 x 5 days = RM41 x 4 weeks is = RM164.
Food. Now Malaysians like to spent money so much on food. It's all about class. Nak makan kat mamak atau warung / restaurant biasa bagi alasan takde standard, takde class. Once in blue moon if you wanna enjoy good food ok, but don't do it everyday! It's a waste to spent RM50 just on food per day. How is that going to help you to save up your money.
Brand is important. I drop by a grocery to get my shower foam. It cost me RM20 bucks for a 1 liter of Shower foam (Dettol). But I choose the soap bar (that comes in 3) that costs RM4. It saves A LOT! Vitagen costs RM1.10 per bottle and we have Berry Crazy yogurt drink for RM0.90 only. And it taste even better.
Parking. Very stingy not to pay RM1-6 ringgit for a parking, but not stingy to get summon tickets from DBKL and Police Traffic with bills up to RM300.
Start comparing bumiputra or non-bumiputra price for housing loans. Even how high or low the rates of a house or an apartment / condo you can get, you STILL will spend money on unnecessary renovation, buy expensive furniture, spent up to RM10,000 for a rock and fish garden, kitchen and others. FYI, one Koi fish is RM500 and above.When they about to sell the house, buyers don't care how much you had spent on renovation, they will still bargain to get less price. It's human nature.

Unless some Malaysian earn very low income. They would suffer from this. I would felt sorry for them. The past two months, I had been recklessly spent too much money on unnecessary things. I myself admit that I had been wasting my money a lot on entertainment. That's why I had take major, major change to keep myself aware of what's going on. I am trying hard to minimize my entertainment :-)

We should be able to spend our money wisely. I know I have to. We should be able to cut on our entertainment, not all but try to keep it less for better, stop wasting time subscribing to unnecessary plans and buying expensive materials or getting installment scheme.

Still Photography

Me, Abby, Syiqin, Ripi & Nagen.

Yes, never missed it on weekly basis. What we did few weeks back after such trouble work in the office, we went for photo walk in Salak South with Syiqin, Ripi, Nagen and Abby.

Salak South Photo walk with friends. This is Nagen.

Old photos, recently edited. My photo walk with my Saladin artist at the bird park.

Manage to take photos in this year Citrawarna Malaysia 2008. Noryn & Sam, good luck in L.A.!

What's New With Creative?

I will be joining together with my team, Digital Malaya Project for an interactive art exhibition for Urbanscapes, located in KLPac, this upcoming 27th of June. Please come! pre-ticket sell at RM25 while RM35 on that day itself. Check out th website fore more info. DMP has an all-new team joining us is Fariz Hanapiah from MotioFixo, Fozy, Nadirah, Ee Venn and Prakash Daniel and official step down from the group is Shieko. We welcome back Perez.

Other than that, I will be working on two local artist's album. You guys would probably figure it out who ;-).

Extract from my novel:

Waktu itu, aku masih berada didalam bebola perut ibundaku. Kedengaran rentak-rentak aneh memberikan suatu tanda tanya. Ibuku berkata didalam hati bahawa aku kini didalam kereta menuju ke Ipoh sambil mendengar lagu Blondie 'Heart of Glass'. Aku mula bertanya, adakah manusia mempunyai hati kaca? adakah begitu mudah memancar sinar, turut pecah berderai sekiranya terusik?

_

Bicara 'Unity'

noreply@blogger.com (Muid Latif) — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:26:00 +0000

Sekian lama tidak menulis jurnal digitalku dalam bahasa Melayu. Ini mengingatkan saya dengan perisitwa ‘menarik’ ketika ditemuramah oleh Sultan Muzaffar untuk Astro Awani pada 24hb April tempohari (kerana saya agak kaku ditemuramah dalam bahasa Melayu) bagi menjayakan projek UNITY yang dikendalikan oleh Pete Teo bersama rakan-rakan (termasuk saya)

Projek yang dinamakan ‘Malaysian Artistes For UNITY’ adalah gabungan artis-artis tempatan termasuk personaliti yang dikenali di Malaysia bagi menyumbangkan bakat mereka didalam lagu dan video ‘Here In My Home’ yang juga diarahkan oleh Yasmin Ahmad dan Ho Yuhang. Lagu dan video 'Here In My Home' boleh dimuat-turun pada masa terdekat, Insya'Allah.

Video Teaser of ‘Here In My Home’

With me are recent 15th AIM winner, Atilia (Best Video) & Suki (Best New Artist)

Saya amat terharu kerana diberi peluang bekerja dengan Yasmin Ahmad, walaupun tidak secara langsung, namum kehadirannya didalam set di KLPac membuatkan saya rasa gembira kerana dapat saksikan beliau ‘in-action’ bersama krew-krew beliau yang amat rajin dan bertungkus-lumus memastikan semua berjalan dengan lancar. Video ‘Here In My Home’ akan diterbitkan di Astro dan di beberapa rangkaian dimasa hadapan, Insya’Allah. Dapatlah saya melihat penampilan satu-dua saat saya bersama rakan-rakan artis lain seperti Izzy, Alex dari SingleTrackMind (sangat rendah diri dan baik orangnya) didalam video tersebut. Turut di set pada hari itu adalah rakan-rakan artis yang biasa saya jumpa seperti Atilia, Ida Nerina, Jaclyn Victor, Suki (sangat comel dan aktif bertutur dalam bahasa Melayu), Kamal Sabran (dari Perak), Awie, Afdlin Shauki, Sultan Muzaffar, Ajami (Blogger/Writer), KLG Squad, Pang (The Annexe), Jerome, Fid Fathir (rakan jurugambar yang turut bersama saya ketika saya di Jakarta March lalu), Reshmonu dan beberapa artis yang lain.

More reviews at: KLue #115 & Yasmin The Story Teller.

Bagi mereka yang mendapat SMS dari Pete Teo mengatakan saya akan turut menyumbangkan rekaan saya untuk kapal terbang AirAsia A320, dukacitanya saya tidak dapat memberikan komitmen saya disebabkan komitmen saya sebagai Pengarah Kreatif untuk projek WCIT & IAP. Saya juga kini sibuk mereka beberapa cover art (album) untuk indie artist tempatan seperti Hunny Madu, Nabil dan sebuah kumpulan metal (underground). Moga-moga dapat terluang masa saya untuk menyiapkan rekaan-rekaan mereka.

Kekurangan 2kg & Hal-hal kerja

Persediaan untuk World Congress on IT (WCIT) 2008 & Persidangan ‘International Advisory Panel’ pada bulan ini menyebabkan saya banyak menghabiskan masa di pejabat sehinggakan kerja dari rumah bagi memastikan kerja-kerja saya dilaksanakan. Sejak akhir-akhir ini, terlalu banyak rekaan yang perlu dibuat. Buat kempen IAP, saya telah membuat arahan seni dari rekaan dari poster ke iklan, buku program, tag krew, pas untuk pengunjung, welcome banners, template powerpoint, online web banners, wallpaper hingga lah ke video dan animasi.

Saya juga kini turut membabitkan diri saya dalam menjayakan sebuah filem arahan rakan saya, Ariff Aris bertajuk 'meniPULATE'. Saya akan bertangungjawab bagi menjayakan kempen web bersama rakan saya Jimmy.

Karya terbaru: 'Ms. Novelity'

Azam saya tahun ini bagi menghasilkan kerja-kerja illustrasi dan rekaan berjalan lancar. Tiap-tiap bulan, ada saja karya-karya baru dihasilkan walaupun saya amat sibuk. Bagi saya, menghasilkan karya adalah suatu kebebasan yang mengimbangkan kreativiti saya dihari saya dalam stress dan tekanan.

Oleh disebabkan masalah kulit yang ketara kerana alergi terhadap makanan laut, akibatnya kulit saya mengalami lebih banyak jerawat disekitar belakang badan. Dengan nasihat doktor, boleh kata setiap minggu saya membuat rawatan scrub badan di beberapa spa di Kuala Lumpur, banyak juga wang dihabiskan untuk membeli ubat selain spa. Sekiranya antara pengunjung mempunyai kaedah tradisional yang boleh diperkenalkan kepada saya, saya sudi mencuba, asalkan ia tidaklah membabitkan ilmu bomoh (ilmu hitam). Disebabkan itu, saya perlu mengamalkan pemakanan sihat seperti sayur-sayuran, maka saya perlu mengelakkan pemakanan daging merah seperti beruang, itik dan dugong dan kurangkan 'white meat' seperti ayam. Diet ini juga menyebabkan saya turun berat badan hampir 2kg, dari 60kg ke 58kg :-( . Terima kasih juga kepada rakan saya Rajan yang telah memberikan beberapa tips penjagaan pemakanan.

Jalan-Jalan Tangkap Gambar

Seperti biasa, setiap bulan saya pergi sekitar Lembah Klang bersama rakan-rakan dari kumpulan KLickr dan baru-baru ini saya bersekempatan untuk menangkap gambar bangunan dan lanskap di Istana Kellie, Perak.

Gambar diambil oleh Hafiz Latif, dan disunting oleh saya.

Adik saya, Hafiz mula menunjukkan bakatnya dalam fotografi. Saya amat terharu melihat darah kreatif mengalir dalam keluarga saya. Ada beberapa gambar beliau diambil dengan menggunakan camera SLR saya dan beliau sendiri telah mengendalikan setting dengan baik untuk mendapatkan pendedahan cahaya yang sesuai.

Saya juga sedang memberikan nafas baru dalam persembahan fotografi saya supaya dilihat lebih kontemporari.

Fotografi Seni Bina: ‘Uniting Obscurity’, sekitar jalan Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur.

Outro

Banyak yang berlaku sejak akhir-akhir ini dan saya bersyukur kerana Tuhan memberikan saya pelbagai peluang terbuka. Saya akan mengemaskini entry ini dari masa ke semasa terutama tentang video 'Here In My Home', Insya’Allah. Terima kasih kerana mengunjungi blog saya.

_